Everybody has a day. You know the day. A day to remember. A day to memorialize. A day to keep sacred forever.
Moses tells us what day that should be.
The day that should be our day is: the day we tell our kids about Jesus.
Ok…well, he didn't actually use the word Jesus, because Jesus hadn't shown up yet in human flesh. Jesus hadn't died on the cross yet. He also hadn't lived a sinless life, resurrected from the dead, conquered sin. But all those things are coming and Moses is preparing us for them.
On That Day
I remember a morning. My father told me to pack and be ready. In the evening, after he came home from work, we were going backpacking. I love backpacking. I think it's probably one of my favorite things to do. That night when he got home from work, he loaded me up with my twin brother Benjamin in his gigantic gray Chrysler with a maroon top. We drove to the north side of the grand canyon. We almost hit a deer on the way. We also stopped for chinese food which I proceeded to barf up in the car before we made it to the trailhead. We slept the rest of the night in the car at the trailhead and headed out the next morning on one of the most memorable trips of my life. We hiked ten miles down, camped for a week, swam in golden pools of water, jumped through waterfalls. It is still, to this date, one of the most adventurous things I've ever done. I remember it with such excitement.
This is the way we are to tell our kids about God.
This is how we are to tell our kids about what He's done.
We are to take them on the adventure of their lives by telling our story of how God has change us, saved us, and moved in our life. We are to memorialize God. We are to stand up on the table and shout. We are to get excited, red in the face, and scream about how awesome God is. We are to make our kids laugh and giggle when we tell them how lame we are and how amazing God is when he shows up.
Scriptures as Living Memorials to God
One of the images I remember from that trip is a thick, dark grey chain. It hung on a cliff that ran down to the seven pools. In order to climb down to the pools we had to carefully cling to the chain and lower ourselves down the steep trail.
The Bible is our chain.
God's law is the monument that guides the story of him. Only when the scriptures become real and necessary will they become the memorial we use to remember who He is and what He's done.
We tell the story by walking our kids through the story of God in scripture.
Are You Planning for Your Day
What will the day look like when you tell your kids about Jesus?
Some of you already did that and now your kids are grown and are out of the house. Some of you may have done that this morning. Others of you don't have kids, but you should plan early and get a good kids Bible (I recommend The Jesus Storybook Bible). However, many of you are not planning at all to tell your kids about Jesus. This is the most important day of our kids lives and yet we often treat is like the hidden past. We think oh, they'll just pick up on it when they're older. The truth is: they won't. We should prepare a day to tell them.
Some of you don't plan for that day and there are reasons you don't:
- Maybe you don't believe in God?
- Maybe you don't believe in the God of the Bible?
- Maybe you don't have time in your schedule?
- Maybe your kids don't listen when you talk?
- Maybe you and your spouse rarely talk about spirituality and so it's hard to plan a talk with your kids?
Really, it's more than one day. It's a whole repetition of days. It's the day-in-day-out talking with our kids about God and reading of scripture that teaches them about who God is.
I remember this because one day I was frustrated at breakfast trying to tell Abbey and Ethan a story from Genesis. They were not listening. The more I tried, the more they goofed off, the more frustrated I became. And then it dawned on me, I hadn't read the Bible to them in almost three months. Of course they were not listening. It's meant to be repetition, over time, one idea at a time, that builds into an understanding of who God is and what He's done.
I remember this because one day I was frustrated at breakfast trying to tell Abbey and Ethan a story from Genesis. They were not listening. The more I tried, the more they goofed off, the more frustrated I became. And then it dawned on me, I hadn't read the Bible to them in almost three months. Of course they were not listening. It's meant to be repetition, over time, one idea at a time, that builds into an understanding of who God is and what He's done.
On that day.
When is your day?
What is the plan?
How will it go?
Will you tell the story of the strong hand of your God?
AB.
AB.
