CREC 10 E3- Christian Education

CREC 10 E3- Education

Sermon Notes

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What Your Kids Should Know

Deut. 6:1-11, Eph. 6:1-4

12/31/2017

Lynchburg, Virginia

EXHORDIUM

         We have been making our way through the CREC acronym. We are now on E, Evangelical. This is the third sermon on evangelical. In the last two sermons, I mentioned two key aspects of evangelicals.

First, we believe that Christians, indeed, are those who are filled with God’s Holy Spirit. They have been regenerated to life. They are born again. We do not need to know when this new birth has occurred, it may even have happened in the womb like John Baptist, or at your baptism, or at some later point in your life. When, is not the most important point of the new birth. We don’t need to know what time the sun came up just that it has come up. And we can tell that by looking in the sky. There is Christian fruit in the life of the Spirit-born believer.

Second, evangelicals are people of the Bible. They believe the Bible absolutely. They embrace the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation and are not embarrassed by any part of the Scriptures. It is the absolute rule of doctrine and practice.

In the CREC, one of the areas of great concern is how our children are raised both in the church and in the Scriptures. If the Bible is our standard, then our children need to be educated in the Bible. This includes Bible reading and Bible Study but it is not merely Bible reading and Bible study. Nearly all Christians of every stripe do some Bible Reading and some Bible Study. And having done so may still end up with a liberal view of Scripture, picking and choosing what to believe as it meets their own personal needs or matches up to the prevailing cultural winds. We manifestly reject that sort of reading of the Bible.

Instead, we embrace a full reading and full submission to the Scriptures.

Whenever we, or our church, is found to be out of accord with the Scriptures, we embrace Reformation. We need to change to comply with the Scriptures. This is what we call a Biblical Worldview.

It is imperative that we raise our children with a Biblical Worldview. Or, shall I say, with a view of the world as seen from the Scriptures. In order for that to happen, the children need to know the Bible and be in the process of thinking like the Bible.

First of all, Christians everywhere embrace the idea that Jesus is Lord. Unfortunately, they do not believe completely enough. Many evangelicals have settled for the idea that Jesus is Lord of my life, or even worse, that Jesus is Lord of my heart. While both of those are true, they don’t say very much. Jesus is indeed Your Lord, Lord of your life and Lord of your heart. But He is also Lord of your marriage, Lord of your family, Lord of your church, Lord of your school, Lord of your math assignment, Lord of your biology class, Lord of your Lacrosse team, Lord of your city government, Lord of your state, Lord of your country, Lord of your continent, Lord of hemisphere, Lord of your globe, Lord of your solar system, galaxy, and universe. Have I left anything out?

Jesus is Lord means that Jesus is Lord. There are no exceptions. And if He is Lord of everything then we must learn what that means and learn how to submit to His Lordship in virtually every area of our lives.

Now, given that exhaustive list of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and then looking around both at the pagan culture and even at the Christian culture and even the conservative evangelical culture, we should ask ourselves how we are doing in teaching this kind of absolute Lordship of Christ to our children. Do they understand it? Do they believe it? Do they act in accordance with it?
        

EXEGESIS

Eph. 6:1   Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. ² Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) ³ That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. ⁴ And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Paul here invokes the ten commandments in commanding Christian Education for our children. There are several things we can notice from this. One, the Ten Commandments are still in play. There is continuity between the Old and New Testaments. If the Lord has not specifically abrogated laws or rules from the Old Testament, then they still apply in the New Testament. This is a huge principle which opens up a great deal of learning for us from the entire Scripture, Genesis to Revelation.

So, children are to be disciplined in education by their parents but the parents, particularly fathers, are to do it in such a way as not to exasperate their children. The children should not be provoked to wrath. As I have often said, it is not the duty of parents to teach children things or make children obey. The duty of parents is to teach the children to love what you love. First, our Lord and His absolute Sovereign rule. Second, all of His ways as revealed in the Bible. If our children love what we love then they will not be provoked to wrath.

This bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord is a big responsibility. It is one that requires diligence on part of parents.

Nurture- paideu/w paideuoœ; from 3816; to train up a child, i.e. educate, or (by implication), discipline (by punishment): — chasten(-ise), instruct, learn, teach.

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

Admonition- nouqesi÷a nouthesia; from 3563 and a derivative of 5087; calling attention to, i.e. (by implication) mild rebuke or warning: — admonition.

Now, if we are required to train our children in the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ, then we need to take seriously the method that we choose to do so. Consider the admonition of Deuteronomy 6.

Deut. 6:1   Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it:

Israel was going into a foreign land to possess it. That is our goal. The Lord Jesus has claimed all the land and we are to train up our children to possess it.

² That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged. ³ Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey.

This admonition was given by the Lord so that when they are in the land they will keep all His statutes. They who go in and their sons and their son’s sons. This is a generational commandment. The promise is both possession of the land and blessing in the land.

4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:

Shema: Basic confession. There is but one God and Jesus is His Son. The Lord Jesus has ascended to the throne and rules over all.

⁵ And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

First commandment. Quoted by Jesus. Jesus quoted the Shema as the perpetual law of the Lord.

⁶ And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

Know and believe the commands.

⁷ And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt 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.

Teach them diligently to thy children. Twenty-four hour job.

Sittest in thine house- Dinner time. Casual talk.

Walkest by the way- Engaging the world. Notice things. Point them out.

Liest down- End of day. Even sleep.

Risest up- grace for the new day. His mercies new every morning.

⁸ And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. ⁹ And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. 

What does this mean? Know the Bible. Work out in your hands with works of righteousness. Keep them in the forefront of your mind as you live your life each day.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. All who enter here! This means nothing less than applying a Biblical way of thinking to virtually every circumstance. That is what it means to submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Is this the sort of children you are raising? Sort of? It takes a tremendous amount of work. It takes a great deal of involvement in your children’s lives. It takes conversations.

How Can We Do This?

         First of all, we must commit to the children’s discipline, nurture and admonition, to be fully Christian. If you are disciplined in the Lord, then you show yourself a child of God. A good father disciplines his sons. A good son is disciplined in his father’s way.

         There are various ways to accomplish Christian Education. Whatever way you choose, you need to realize that you, as parents, are responsible for the Christian Education your children. Whether you use a Christian School, online Christian education, Christian local classes, a Christian co-op, or homeschool, you, as a parent, are still responsible for both the content and delivery of the education. You can and should delegate some of the work but whether it is good and whether it fulfills the call of Christian Education is your responsibility.

         Again, this means that you need to be engaged. It means you need to know what your kids are learning. It means you need to know what your kids are thinking and how they approach the world.

         One of the central strongholds of the devil is government education. This is true in K-12 Education as well as secular colleges. For any Christian to utilize these resources of education, they need to know they will be engaged in an all-out war for their education, lives and souls of their children.

         It constantly amazes me that Christians, evangelical Christians, have not yet awakened to this reality. There are the beginnings of this. Even in the Southern Baptist Convention, there have been a few attempts and trying to get the Convention to recommend Baptists pull their kids out of government schools. But there is still a lot of misguided support of government schools.

         Among even political conservatives, I would think they would have bailed out of the government schools or at least fought to have conservative ideas be foundational to public education. But, alas, it is not so. Liberal higher education fuels both the content and teaching methods of all public education in America. It is decidedly liberal and increasingly anti-Christian. And that is true, even in a Christian city like Lynchburg, Virginia.

         With all of this in mind, the CREC is one of the few denominations, to openly make a stand against Christians sending their kids to government schools. There may be other denominations that have done so but I am not aware of them if they are out there. Of course, this is wildly unpopular by the hordes of evangelicals who continue to send their kids to government schools.

Why do they do so? One, because they are free. Two, because they are free, they justify it by claiming their kids are salt and light. But if the salt have lost it savor and the light is put under a peck measure…

Qualification- We believe and teach strongly on this subject. It is an important part of the CREC. However, we also understand that people are in many different places as they awaken to these truths. This is not a boundary of fellowship. We have people in our churches with their kids in the public schools for various reasons. We understand this. While we are concerned for those families and those children, we do not condemn them. We want them here to worship with us and to grow in Christ and in their understanding of what the Lord requires of them as parents and students.

Second, this is not a failsafe. We do not claim that all Christian school kids or home school kids are going to fully embrace Christ, His Church, or our church. The world is a messy place. Sin rears its ugly head everywhere. Some kids are given a great education and then squander it foolishly. We do not think that kids given a Christian Education will automatically use it to the glory of Christ and His Church. Far from it. But given that truth, we think it even more imperative that we give our kids every advantage to success in Christ as we can.

Listen to the wisdom of our CREC Memorial on this subject. By the way, every pastor and elder in the CREC has to assent to this Memorial or give a reason why they do not. Our memorials are not quite at the level of our Confessions but we do know which elders do not adhere to these views. And based upon that, we can decide to receive those churches into membership in the CREC or not.

Memorial C. Christian Education

All things are to be considered and conducted under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, including education, and especially the education of our covenant children. God has not charged the state to educate children but has explicitly commanded parents to bring up their children in the education and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4, Deut. 6:7). Given the importance and enormity of the task (Ps. 127:3 - 5, Deut. 6:7 - 9), and the impossibility of neutrality in education (Prov. 1:7, Matt. 12:30, Luke 6:40, Col. 2:1 - 10, 2 Cor. 10:3 - 5), we do heartily affirm the necessity of educating our children in a manner that is explicitly Christian in content and rigor.

The Lordship of Jesus Christ- He is Lord of everything. Incidentally, this relates to our eschatology. We have an optimistic view of the gospel. We think it works. We think the Lord Jesus will accomplish what He set out to do. Namely, to save the world. The Lordship of Jesus requires this outcome.

Parents Responsible for Education not the State- In the short term, Christian parents need to educate their kids. In the long-term, there needs to be a Christian solution to the education of all children. We need to promulgate the view that education is not the role of government.

Government schools tend to be, by decree and design, explicitly godless, and therefore normally should not be considered a legitimate means of inculcating true faith, holy living and a decidedly Christian worldview in the children of Christian parents. Therefore, we strongly encourage Christian parents to seek alternative ways of educating their children, whether by means of Christian schools or homeschooling. In cases, where Christian education is an impossibility, parents must be active and diligent in overseeing the education of their children.

         Government schools normally not considered legitimate means of teaching Christian worldview to our kids.

In cases, where Christian education is an impossibility, parents must be active and diligent in overseeing the education of their children.

        

Parents who do not fully understand the indispensability of Christian education should be warmly received into membership. However, the leaders of Christ’s church must thoroughly understand and plainly teach the divine imperative to disciple our children, the divine prohibition of rendering unto Caesar those who bear God’s image (Matt. 22:20 - 21), the divine warning to those who cause their little ones to stumble (Matt. 18:6) and the divine promises to those who raise their children in faith (Deut. 7:9, Ps.102:5 - 7, Ps. 103:17 - 18, Prov. 22:6, Luke 1:48 - 50, Acts 2:39).

Parents who do not fully understand the indispensability of Christian education should be warmly received into membership.

This is not a boundary of fellowship. However, it is important to us and is an area of concern. This is the sort of thing the elders would talk to folks about and ask them the reasons why their kids are in government schools and help them think through options to their kids’ education.

EXHORTATION    

         Expand Your View whether you currently agree with explicit Christian education or not.

1.   Jesus is Lord is the key to this. Jesus is Lord of everything. He is Lord of them personally. He is Lord of the family, education, job, church, city, state, nation, continent, the world and the universe. There is no piece of creation, no piece of real estate that is left unclaimed by Jesus Christ. That is our starting point.

If this is true and nearly all Christians believe that it is, then what are the implications? Are we willing to leave areas where we are content that Jesus is not in control? What about those areas where we can have influence? Like their own education?

2.   Kingdom Mindedness- What is the long-term goal for your kids? Their kids? Is it not the growth of the kingdom of God? If so, then we should be thinking about the best ways to accomplish that goal. If so, how we educate our children and our children’s children is of the utmost importance.

So, embrace the Lordship of Jesus and train your children up in the way that they should go. Amen.