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HELPING
OUR YOUTH CATCH THE GOSPEL
by
Elaine & Willie Oliver
Department of Family Ministries,
North American Division
1998
| Theme:
Since values are more often caught than taught, we parents and
guardians have the wonderful opportunity of helping children
and youth to take hold of the gospel by providing an atmosphere
of warmth, openness and grace and allowing our young people
to witness our own behavior, including our mistakes and our
requests for forgiveness. |
| Theme
Text: Deuteronomy 6:6-9 |
| Presentation
Notes: Throughout the following outline, numbers in
parentheses (1), (2), (3) are used to indicate items from the
section called Sermon Illumination which may be used
for illustration. The addition of your personal illustrations
will enhance the presentation. |
In Deuteronomy
6:6-9, God gives guidance to parents to help them inspire faith
in their children and a desire to know and serve God. His mandates
to mothers and fathers include: having His commandments in their
hearts, sharing His commandments with their children, and modeling
His commandments in their lives at all times.
Having God's
Commandments in Your Heart
Parents cannot pass on to their children what they do not have themselves.
Faith and commitment to God must dwell in their hearts first. It
is impossible for His commandments to be within us in the way God
intends without comprehending them within the context of the good
news of the gospel. The acceptance of the gospel of Jesus is a prerequisite
to having God's commandments in one's heart.
Accepting God's grace through faith. "For it is by grace
you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8). Grace and faith are shown
here to be two important elements at the core of the gospel of Jesus
Christ. Grace is unmerited favor, undeserved good will. Salvation
is ours when we accept God's grace by faith. Faith is resting in
God, putting one's whole trust in Him. The life of a parent who
constantly relies on God for everything he or she is and does demonstrates
the meaning of faith to a child (Gal. 3:26; John 3:16; Mark 16:15,16;
Heb. 11:6; John 1:16).
Accepting God's power in your life. "I am not ashamed
of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation
of everyone who believes" (Rom. 1:16a). When one accepts the
salvation which God has given to the world in Christ—His gift
of grace—we experience God's mighty power to save us in Christ.
Our minds and hearts are transformed as He writes His laws within
them. His commandments abide in the heart through the power received
when salvation is accepted. These truths are for us as parents to
experience and we may then share them with our offspring (John 1:12;
2 Cor. 12:9; Titus 2:11, 12; Heb. 8:10; 13:9; Rom. 5:20, 21; 12:2).
Sharing
God's Commandments With Your Children
As God instructed Israelite parents to impress upon their children
the ways of the Lord, so He would have us do today. This sharing
is something He knows can be done in a special way by parents and
it is to be given a high priority.
Role of parents in the socialization of children. Parents
are predominant in the socialization of children. The family is
the main arena for socialization. To be sure, there are other agents
(pastors, peers, teachers, the mass media) and other places where
socialization occurs (churches, playgrounds, schools, places of
entertainment), but parents in the family setting are still the
first and most important values teachers in their children's lives.
(1) Scripture prescribes this kind of parental involvement (Eph.
6:4) and E. G. White supports it. (2)
What research
tells us about values transmission from parents to children. Valuegenesis,
the massive research project commissioned by the Seventh-day Adventist
Church a number of years ago, clearly demonstrates that the family
is the primary place where the faith and values of children are cultivated.
In the research, five important elements about family that impact
faith maturity in children and youth are identified:
•
Mother. The mother is comfortable about frequently sharing
her faith with her children.
• Father. The father is comfortable about frequently
sharing his faith with his children.
• Support. Parents communicate with children frequently
in a positive and supportive way.
• Control. Parents have high standards, set time limits,
and enforce them with love.
• Spiritual togetherness. The family is frequently involved
in meaningful and interesting worship together and engaged in service
projects to benefit others. (3)
In order to
bring the gospel to youth in the home, then, parents need to have
a living faith that is communicated to their children in their everyday
interaction—while driving down the street, working in the garden,
riding on the train, reading together, playing together, and worshiping
together. Children and youth feel most secure in their religious
values when there are boundaries that are lovingly enforced. Just
as adults feel more comfortable driving across a bridge which has
sides, youth will perceive boundaries that are implemented kindly
and firmly as a protection and a communication of love and concern
by their parents.
Dynamics of spiritual growth in youth. According to Valuegenesis,
there are four basic things needed by youth in order to grow to
spiritual maturity:
•
A
grace orientation toward salvation. Parents need to share with
their youth the biblical concept of salvation as the gift of a loving
God to undeserving creatures. It is not good behavior which saves
us. There isn't anything we can do to earn salvation. All we can
do is accept the gift which comes with overcoming power. With the
gift comes a yearning for communion with the Giver, a personal relationship
with Jesus. It is that relationship that informs and directs our
behavior, not our behavior that puts us into favor with God (Eph.
2:8; John 1:12; John 3:16).
• Joy in worshiping God in all facets of life. Young
people need to understand that there is no dichotomy in the life
of the Christian. In every enterprise one should bring glory to
God. Whether in the class room or on the playing field, whether
at home or at church, whether at work or in recreation, youth must
be encouraged to develop an awareness of the presence of God in
their lives and to find joy in the awareness of His presence (1
Cor. 10:31).
• A climate of acceptance, openness and warmth. The
gospel of Jesus Christ is most compelling in the lives of youth
when they are in an environment of encouragement and support as
they develop into spiritual maturity. (4) Instead of putting down
or criticizing their youth, parents do well to exercise patience
and kindness and to display warmth in order to create a positive
atmosphere where spiritual growth is possible and is embraced by
youth. (5)
• Service opportunities for ministry to others. There
is nothing that builds muscle, physical or spiritual, like exercise.
A faith that is only theoretical will soon be a faith that is weak
and inefficient. Providing youth with opportunities to be of service
to others will help develop feelings of worth—"I can make
a difference in the lives of others." These feelings translate
into a way of life—one of service to God and to one's neighbor.
Service is a bridge from theoretical faith to active faith.
Modeling
God's Commandments In Your Life
There is a well known saying that states: "Do as I say, but
don't do as I do." A television commercial on substance abuse
shows a father and son in the son's bedroom. The father catches
his son smoking marijuana and in anger shouts, "Where did you
learn to do that?" The son angrily retorts, "By watching
you." The father is perplexed because he is not involved with
illegal drugs. The son has seen him, however, with other "legal,"
but also detrimental, drugs.
Since values are caught more often than taught, there is no doubt
about why our children are so much like us. If parents yell at each
other and are impatient, children often yell at each other and are
also impatient. We have been amazed at how much our children behave
like us—a matter that we have not always been ready to accept.
In fact, it is so very easy to attribute the negative behavior in
our children to traits in our spouse's family of orientation. We
call this denial and self-preservation. Often, the reverse is also
true—we ascribe to our own family of orientation all that is
positively reproduced in our children. (6)
There is little doubt why God impressed the prophet to write in
Deuteronomy about how we should share the gospel with our children.
"Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit
at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and
you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your
foreheads."
To be sure, many of us are concerned about our children who are
growing up in our homes and not accepting Jesus Christ and being
baptized. This kind of decision does not take place in a vacuum.
"By beholding we become changed." It takes more than just
telling our children that they need to be baptized. By the way we
live daily, we witness positively or negatively to them. All our
pious prayers at church are likely to be ineffective if there is
harshness, impatience and lack of love at home.
Communicating the gospel to our children is what we might call a
"24-7" enterprise—an effort that we make all day,
everyday, regardless of what we're doing; interacting at home or
outside of the home, early in the morning and late at night, by
the daily rituals of our lives at home and the priority we give
to spiritual matters there, by our kindness, our caring and our
love, we testify of Jesus and His saving grace. Even when we make
mistakes (and we will), learning how to ask each other and our children
for forgiveness will share the reality of God's forgiveness and
willingness to give us a new opportunity and strength to live victoriously
for Him.
Conclusion
The writer of Deuteronomy is clear with the directives from God.
We must have a personal experience and relationship with our Lord
by accepting His grace and being empowered to live for Him. We should
be deliberate about sharing our spiritual values with our children
in an atmosphere of acceptance, openness and warmth. And we should
be mindful of the fact that we are witnessing to our children even
when we are not aware of it. So often what we do is more important
than what we say.
By ourselves this enterprise is impossible, but "with God all
things are possible." If we have been less successful in this
enterprise of communicating the good news of the gospel to our children
than we had hoped, we can with confidence lift them in prayer before
our gracious heavenly Father who knows and understands both us and
them. As we turn to Him, we can receive forgiveness for our own
shortcomings. We can gain deeper insights into the good news of
the gospel, discover more effective ways of using our influence,
and receive new strength to continue in our relationships with our
children and, hopefully, rebuild relationships that have been damaged.
Best of all, we can get a fresh grasp on the assurance that by God's
own act in Christ He has cared for our salvation and the salvation
of our children. We can trust Him with that. With renewed hope we
can go about the wonderful work of issuing, through life and word,
the invitation to accept His gracious gift.
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Sermon
Illumination
|
| One
(1): Socialization of young children has been described
as perhaps the single universal function of the family. For
thousands of years the family exercised a virtual monopoly over
child socialization. Prior to industrialization, small children
spent most of their time with parents, siblings, grandparents,
aunts, uncles, and cousins. Since industrialization, child rearing
has been the primary function of the immediate nuclear family—parents
and siblings. In the past few decades, time with the immediate
family has given way to more time spent with peers in day care
centers, with babysitters, and in schools. Yet, even with these
changes, parents and families remain the central agents and
settings where socialization takes place. (Gelles, 1995, p.
290) |
| Two
(2): The father and the mother should be the first teachers
of their children. . . . The training of children constitutes
an important part of God's plan for demonstrating the power
of Christianity. A solemn responsibility rests upon parents
so to train their children that when they go forth into the
world, they will do good and not evil to those with whom they
associate. (Child Guidance, p. 21) |
Three
(3): We know that the family is the crucial laboratory in
which the faith and values of our children are developed. Five
things have become important due to the research about faith,
values and commitment:
Mother. When the mother is highly religious, is comfortable
talking about her faith, shares her faith often with her children,
and has discussions about faith with the young people, youth
are more likely to mature in faith and develop commitment to
a religious outlook.
Father. When the father is highly religious, is comfortable
talking about his own faith, often shares his faith with his
children, and has regular discussions about faith with them,
they are more likely to reveal a growing mature faith and a
sense of loyalty to their denomination.
Support. When parent-child communication is frequent
and positive, when family life is experienced as loving, caring,
and supportive, and when parents frequently help their children
with school work, youth are more likely to possess a growing,
rich faith, and a sense of loyalty to their denomination.
Control. When parents hold strong standards, and enforce
them fairly, firmly, and lovingly, punish wrong behavior, and
set limits on their child's use of time, the young people tend
to grow in mature faith and manifest commitment and loyalty
to their church. Though control factors have the least impact
of any of the five groups, control seems to be positive for
the home environment even though it is not for the religious
school and the congregation. When discipline comes from people
whom we know love us, it is best received.
Spiritual togetherness. When the family frequently engages
in worship together, and that worship is interesting and meaningful,
and when the family engages in projects to help other people,
the children and youth are more likely to manifest a growing,
rich, mature faith and loyalty to their denomination. (Tyner,
1996, p. 5) |
| Four
(4): Do not treat your children only with sternness, forgetting
your own childhood and forgetting that they are but children.
Do not expect them to be perfect or try to make them men and
women in their acts at once. (The Adventist Home, p.
196) |
| Five
(5): The heart of a child is tender and easily impressed;
and when we who are older become "as little children,"
when we learn the simplicity and gentleness and tender love
of the Savior, we shall not find it difficult to touch the hearts
of the little ones and teach them love's ministry of healing.
(The Adventist Home, p. 195) |
Six
(6): Both Jessica and Julian, our children, were born in
New York City where we lived for quite some time. If you live
and drive in New York City, or if you have ever visited Manhattan
and had the good fortune (!!) of driving in that volume of traffic
you know what we are talking about; you will develop some impatience
with the traffic. You begin to talk to the other drivers under
your breath. Sometimes it's not under your breath. You shout,
"Let's go" and, "Come on man." These are
common expressions used as the traffic light is about to turn
green and the vehicle in front of you has not yet moved.
We had not noticed how much we had become a part of that driving
culture until one day, as we negotiated the grid-lock of rush-hour
traffic in the City and were not making much progress, we heard
three-year-old Jessica from her car seat in the rear of the
car say, "Come on man, let's go!" We were shocked!
And we looked at each other with that knowing look that admitted,
"We are always modeling even when we do not realize it."
On another occasion, after about 18 months of family worship
following the birth of Jessica, we were musing about her future
and wondering to ourselves if she would someday decide to become
a Seventh-day Adventist Christian. As we knelt to pray to conclude
family worship, our daughter began to pray. Her speech was hardly
intelligible, but our hearts raced with joy and we were almost
overcome with emotion as we recognized that our positive modeling
was beginning to pay-off. |
References
Coles, R. (1997). The moral intelligence of children. New
York, NY: Random House.
Gaebelein,
F. E., General Editor. (1992). The expositor's bible commentary.
Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
Gelles, R.
J. (1995). Contemporary families: A sociological view. Thousand
Oaks,
CA: Sage Publications.
Jemison, T.
H. (1959). Christian beliefs. Mountain View, CA: Pacific
Press Publishing Association.
Larson, R.
and D., with Gillespie, V. B. (1992). Project affirmation: Teaching
values. Riverside, CA: La Sierra University Press.
Tyner, S.
(1996). The colors of grace in our homes. Lincoln, Nebraska:
AdventSource.
White, E.
G. (1952). The Adventist home. Nashville, Tenn.: Southern
Publishing Association
White, E.
G. (1954). Child guidance. Washington, DC: Review and Herald
Publishing Association.
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