We are looking forward to another fantastic Vacation Bible School with children of our community. Our VBS is an excellent opportunity to teach our children Bible stories, and to apply the teachings of the Bible to our lives. Of course, many of our children come to Sunday School, go to Christian camps, and participate in other educational programs of our churches.

I think this is great! What a magnificent opportunity it is to tell children about Jesus and His love for them. What a joy it is to help children accept Jesus Christ as their Savior so that they will follow Him. We need to continue to teach our children about God. I sincerely believe this is a major part of our responsibility as a church.

However, frequently this responsibility is passed off completely on the church. According to the Bible it is primarily the responsibility of the parents. Please do not misunderstand me. I do believe that teaching our children is a great opportunity and responsibility of our church. But, I do NOT believe that God ever intended for the church to do it all.

God intended for parents to teach their children about God in their homes. And while the mother should share in this task, it is the Father who is responsible to have this done. Yet in many homes, if mothers did not read the Bible and pray with their children, it probably would not be done. Perhaps many Fathers present here take this sacred responsibility seriously and read the Scriptures and pray with their children. What do you think would happen in many churches if mothers did not teach in the Sunday School, but left all the responsibility to the Fathers? Many churches would be short of Sunday School teachers. I am grateful that a few men in our churches really do assume their responsibility in their homes and in our churches.

Fathers and Mothers together, share in the responsibility for bringing children into the world and caring for them.

Proposition: Parents have a sacred responsibility to:

I. Explain the Scriptures to their children.

In Deuteronomy 6 Moses tells the people that God has commanded him to teach them God's statutes and commandments. In the second verse he tells why? The answer is so that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son, and your son's son, by keeping all His statutes and commandments. This brings up another question to me. How is this fear, this confidence in God to be carried on from son, to his son, to his son's son? I believe the answer is in verse 6 and 7 where we read, "And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children."

This is a sacred responsibility that we dare not take lightly. Parents are not only commanded to teach their children Scriptures, but to teach them diligently. This speaks of perseverance, hard work, persistence, and a task done carefully. In other words, it is not something we dare take lightly or neglect, without serious consequences. There may be some embarrassed parents standing before the judgment seat of Christ.

Teaching children scriptures is an ongoing obligation of parents, consisting of family devotions, reading Bible stories to their children, helping them understand the Bible and teaching them how they should live. This is in addition to involving them in family worship at church, Sunday School, and other church activities.

Through the years I have heard some parents trying to excuse themselves by saying that they do not know the Scriptures well enough to teach their child. I do not think the Lord would accept that as a valid excuse. In verses 5 and 6 we read that Christians are to love the Lord their God with all the hearts, and with all their souls, and with all their might. Then Moses wrote, "And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your hearts."

These commandments are given to men and women who have committed their lives to Jesus Christ. If we have really accepted Christ as our Savior and Lord then we should desire to read and study God's Word. Of course, we need to do this if we are going to teach it to our children.

We need to understand the basics of our faith and doctrine to answer the questions of our children. Notice the question in verse 20. "The next time your child asks you, 'What do these requirements and regulations and rules that our God has commanded mean?'" Fathers and Mothers, what will you answer when your child asks you what Jesus Christ means to you? Will you give an answer similar to James that once you were a slave to sin, but God sent Jesus to free you from that bondage?

Of course, our responsibility does not end with explaining the Scriptures. Our lives must also help tell pour children what the Word of God means to us. In other words, we also have a sacred responsibility to

II. Be an Example to their children.

You may notice in verse one that Moses wrote, "that God has commended me to teach you." Immediately following he wrote, "that you might do them." In verse two the healthy fear of the Lord is that you should "keep all His statutes and commandments." In the third verse the instruction is to "listen and be careful to do it, that is may go well with you."

To teach we must first know. We communicate these truths not only with words, but with actions. Listen again to verse seven: "and 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." In other words, all that we do should identify us with the Word of God. We may not be constantly quoting scripture to our children or explaining Bible stories to them every hour of the day, but how we live each moment should be determined by the teachings of God's Word.

I believe we are not only instructed to gather the children around to explain the Bible, but to seek to live Godly examples before our children. As we live for Christ and casually go through the activities of the day we may simply tell our children why we do the things we do. Refer again to the child's question in verse 20. I believe that this also indicates that we should live building the respect of our children so that they feel free to ask us questions about God and the Christian faith.

Conclusion

Fathers and Mothers, Brothers ad sisters, in the church, as the church we do indeed need to teach the Scriptures to our children and to the children whose parents may not yet be followers of Jesus Christ. Why not make an effort to share the joy? Along with that, we parents do have a sacred responsibility to explain the scriptures to our children and to be an example to our children.

What a great responsibility! Dare we not strive to share what means so much to us with our precious children who mean so much to us?

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