Telling God’s Story to Our Children

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We are so grateful this morning to be able to host so many students and family and faculty members from TCA. And I’m thankful that we have the opportunity to partner with you all in some small way in the ministry that you’re doing. There’s almost nothing more important in this world than teaching our kids the right things.

And I appreciate what you’re doing. My wife and I teach all the time. We have four kids and we homeschool.

And by that, I mean I get to do before and after work, fun things like Bible study and science experiments and art projects. And then I get to scurry off to the office and she does the heavy lifting. But we teach all the time.

We are always teaching. Even when we are not teaching school lessons, we’re teaching life lessons as part of parenting, right? And I love when I’m trying to teach the kids something, and I love being able to tell them stories about things that have happened to me, things that have happened to our family.

And it’s really useful when my kids start complaining about how hard their life is. It’s really useful that I know lots of stories about my grandparents growing up dirt poor in southeastern Oklahoma during the Depression, because that just shuts them right up, let me tell you. Oh, my bike is not cool enough.

So I tell them about the day that my grandfather couldn’t afford to replace a leaky tire when he was a child on his bicycle. And so he sealed it up with a can of condensed milk and said it worked great for several months until it popped. And then it was, you know, you didn’t want to be within a block of it.

So I tell them that when they complain that their life is too hard, I tell them about my grandmother who grew up basically the daughter of migrant farm workers. and followed the crops and grew up picking cotton. And I have taken them out and shown them cotton fields.

I said, do you want to spend your time picking this? No. Okay, so sweeping the kitchen is not really so bad, is it?

All right, so I take them and I feel like it has more impact when I’m able to take them and show them some things. Here’s a cotton field. It’s hot.

It’s dirty. Here’s the cotton. It’s eventually going to irritate your fingers.

Those pictures are so important for them to get the lesson, for them to understand what I’m talking about. And God said the same thing when it came to teaching children, when it came to teaching the next generation about what He’s done for us. He said pictures are incredibly important.

Things that they can see, things that they can touch, things that they can taste, things that they can latch on to and make it real to them so that they can get the idea, get the lesson that God wants them to understand. And folks, when it comes to telling our children’s stories and teaching them stories and teaching them important life lessons, there’s nothing more important that we can teach them than what God has done to save us. There’s no story that’s more important, there’s no lesson that’s more vital for us to impart than that one, than that story of what God’s done for us.

So this morning, we’re going to look at a few verses in the book of Exodus. If you have your Bibles with you this morning, I’d invite you to turn with me to Exodus chapter 12. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s in the Old Testament.

It’s the second book of the Bible there toward the front, Exodus chapter 12. And if you don’t have a Bible with you, it’ll be up on the screen. But I’d invite you to turn to Exodus chapter 12 and stand with me as we read together from God’s Word.

Exodus chapter 12, starting in verse 21 this morning, says, Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, Pick out and take lambs for yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb. And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lentil and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning.

For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lentil and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you. And you shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and for your sons forever. And it will come to pass when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, just as He promised, that you shall keep this service.

And it shall be when your children say to you, What do you mean by this service? That you shall say it is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households. So the people bowed their heads and worshipped.

Then the children of Israel went away and did so, just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did. Thank you. You may be seated.

So in this passage, if you’re unfamiliar with what’s going on here, that’s all right. This was during the time that Israel was in slavery in Egypt, and Pharaoh had refused to release them. God sent Moses to say, let my people go.

Pharaoh had refused. He’d actually refused several times. And so God sent an escalating series of plagues to get Pharaoh’s attention, to break Pharaoh’s will, and get Pharaoh to release his people.

And every time Pharaoh stubbornly refused to do it, God escalated matters just a little bit. And finally, on the tenth occasion, after Pharaoh just absolutely refused to obey God and absolutely refused to release the Israelites from their slavery, God said he was going to send one final plague. Now, I just want to caution you here because sometimes people will look at these plagues, and especially this 10th one, and say how harsh God is or just how awful God is.

But God never steps into discipline like this. God never steps into chastise like this until He has given opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to repent. It’s usually in these cases where God says there is no other way that God has to step in and do something drastic.

And so on this tenth occasion, this one final plague, God said throughout the whole country, the firstborn in every family would lose their lives. And there was only one way to escape this certain judgment. There was only one way to escape this judgment that was going to come on Egypt.

To escape God’s judgment against Egypt, a lamb had to be sacrificed. And we see this in verse 21, the very first verse that we looked at. He said to take a lamb and kill the Passover lamb.

So they were to take this lamb and they were going to take a branch of hyssop, which is a small, bushy plant, and they were supposed to take a branch of it. And it was associated with cleansing because it was used in rituals for cleansing all the time. And so they would take this branch of this plant and they would dip the branch in the lamb’s blood and they would use it as sort of a paintbrush.

And they were to take that blood and they were to paint it over the lintel at the top of the door, the top frame of the door. And then they were to paint it down the sides of the door on the doorposts. And I know to us that just seems like a crazy idea.

It probably didn’t make a whole lot of sense to them either, but it’s what God told them to do. Sacrifice this lamb, take this cleansing plant, and put the blood over the door. And then he says in verse 22 that those who believed what God said, in other words, if you hear what God is saying enough to actually go and do it, then you’ll paint the blood over the doorposts, and then you will go into the house, and you will shut yourself up into the house, and you will lock yourself behind the blood all night, and you will not come out, and you will stay there in that house, hidden behind the blood of the Lamb.

And when God sent death through, He said that He would see the blood of the Lamb that was on the doorposts and on the doorframe. He would see that blood, and He would realize that they were covered by that sacrifice of that Lamb. They were covered by the blood.

And so death would turn away from that house and everyone inside would be spared. Once this was finished, once they had done the sacrifice, once they had marked the doorpost, once the sun had come up the next morning and those who had believed, those who had trusted God and had obeyed Him were still alive, they had been spared this judgment. Once all of this had taken place, once all this was finished, God expected them to do one more thing.

Never forget. He wanted them never to forget what he had done. He wanted them never to forget not only the fact that he had spared them from death, not only the fact that he had spared them from this angel of death that was passing through, not only that he had spared them from that judgment, but he also wanted them never to forget that that was the means by which he had freed them from slavery in Egypt.

Because this is what finally broke Pharaoh’s will and convinced him to let the Israelites go. So all through these events, God had been at work to free them from slavery and to free them from the judgment that it was going to take to bring them out of slavery. And God wanted them never to forget what He’d done for them.

And so He said they were going to observe a Passover feast every year. If you’ve ever wondered why we call it Passover, because it’s when the angel of death passed over the house, if you were hidden behind the blood of the sacrifice. They were going to observe a Passover feast every year, And they would serve bitter herbs to remind themselves of the bitterness of slavery.

They would serve unleavened bread to remind themselves of how they had to be prepared to leave quickly when God moved. When God said, okay, it’s time, they had to be ready to go. And so they didn’t have time for the bread to rise.

They had to be ready. So they would continue to serve the unleavened bread as a picture of that. And they would serve a lamb, a roasted lamb, to remind themselves of how God had delivered them from death and from slavery.

See, all of these elements of the Passover, it’s not just a meal. It was meant to tell a story. It was meant to tell a story from generation to generation to generation, as long as the world continued, for them to be able to tell the story of what God had done for them and for their people on that particular night. The Bible tells us that the reminder wasn’t just for them.

It wasn’t just a reminder to those who had come out of Egypt. It was supposed to be a reminder for them to be able to teach their children and their children and their children from generation to generation about how God had saved them. He says in verse 24, you shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons forever.

You’re supposed to do this from now on. You’re supposed to make sure that not only do you never forget, but make sure your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren make sure that they never forget what God has done. He said in verse 26, when your children say to you, what do you mean by this service?

They knew that these pictures were going to take place at the Passover service every year. And these things were going to be done with such a reverence and such a sense of tradition that the children wouldn’t be able to help but ask what the meaning of it was. You know, that sometimes happens with our traditions today.

My kids ask me, why do we always have tamales on Christmas Eve? And I’m here to tell you there’s no significance to that anywhere near as great as what God did for the Israelites. I finally told them it’s because Daddy likes tamales and it’s an excuse to have them.

But they see these traditions carried out and they wonder naturally, what does it mean? Why do we do this? Daddy, why do you always take this road home?

Daddy, why do we always go here to eat? They ask questions. Am I the only one or do any of your kids ask questions?

All the stinking time, right? All the time. Naturally, they’re going to be curious about why do we do these things?

And when you come once a year to this meal that’s so full of ceremony and so full of ritual and so full of reverence and you’re serving the lamb and you’re serving the bitter herbs, I don’t know why anybody would eat those, and you’re serving the unleavened bread, they’re going to naturally wonder why do we do these things. They’re going to be hungry to understand. And it gives us the opportunity to engage them as they just naturally have questions about why we do the things that we do.

And then he tells them in verse 27, you shall say, take every opportunity you have to help them understand God’s salvation. Take every opportunity you have, every question they ask that you can, every opportunity that presents itself, take it and use it to reflect them back to what God has done for them. Because there’s nothing more important that we can point our children to than the salvation that God’s provided for us.

Folks, we must, we must intentionally teach the next generation how God has been faithful to provide us with salvation. We have to do it intentionally, or we’re probably not going to do it by accident. We have to do it, and we have to do it intentionally.

Now, we may say, well, it’s somebody else’s responsibility. That’s easy to do. That’s easy to do.

sometimes I don’t feel like coming home and playing 20 questions with the kids. Sometimes it’d be easier to skip our Bible study time together. It’d be easier to say, you know what, go ask your Sunday school teacher.

Go ask Mrs. McKee. The school will handle it.

The church will handle it. Let me tell you, the Christian school and the church are wonderful institutions that God has put here to partner with the family, but we can’t take the place of the family. We’ve got to be intentional about teaching our children, about teaching the next generation.

Some of you may be sitting there saying, I don’t have children at home. If you’ve got grandchildren, if you’ve got nieces or nephews, some of you have great grandchildren that you spend time with. He’s given you an opportunity.

He’s given you an opportunity to tell his story of salvation to the next generation. And again, I know it’s easier sometimes just to say somebody else will handle that. That’s what we put money in the collection plate for at church, so they’ll handle that.

That’s what we pay tuition for, so the school will handle that. We can say it’s somebody else’s responsibility, but God gave this both to the family and the faith community. Because He gave the Passover to all of Israel, but He also told them to go into their homes and observe the Passover.

As a memorial each year for you and your sons forever, There’s a responsibility for us to teach our kids and our grandkids, our own families, and then as part of the broader Christian community to reinforce those things that are being taught. But we must intentionally teach our children what God has done for them because they’re not going to learn about it by accident out in the world. They’re not going to hear it from Hollywood, are they?

They’re not going to hear it from Washington. They’re not going to hear it from Nashville, any of the cities or the industries we can name. They’re going to hear it, hopefully first, from the family, from the church and the school, reinforcing that.

It’s our responsibility. And as I said a moment ago, if you have children at home, God has given you a built-in opportunity. You have a captive audience.

And I don’t care if you think, oh, my kids don’t want to listen to me. They may not want to listen to you, but they’re going to hear more than you think. If you have kids or grandkids at home, you have a built-in opportunity.

If you have nieces or nephews, grandkids, great-grandkids in close proximity that you get to spend time with, God has given you an opportunity. If you’re here at the church and you work with children, you have an opportunity. If you work with the school and you’ve got kids in your class or you’ve got kids coming through your lunch line or you’ve got kids, you have an opportunity.

He has put an open door right before us to tell the story of His salvation every day to the next generation and help them understand what He’s done for them. Now, you may be left with the question, okay, so I get that it’s my responsibility. I get that I’ve got the opportunity.

How do I do that? Because I understand it’s challenging. It can be daunting, especially if you’ve never intentionally had one of those kinds of conversations with your kids.

It can be uncomfortable. Everything’s uncomfortable when we’re new at it, right? My wife and I don’t necessarily always sit down and discuss the budget.

So the first time I ever had to sit down and say, dear, we have more going out than coming in and we need to figure out a plan here. It was uncomfortable to have that budget conversation with my wife. Anytime we sit down and have a different kind of conversation for the first time, it’s going to be uncomfortable.

But let me reassure you, you don’t have to feel like you have all the answers. In Moses’ day, they didn’t know all the theological implications of the Passover lamb because there’s more that God had to say about the Passover lamb in the New Testament. They didn’t understand everything.

They just knew what God had done for them. And let me tell you this morning, you don’t have to have all the answers to talk to your children about salvation or your grandchildren or your nieces or nephews, whoever it is. If you have been born again, if you have trusted in Jesus Christ alone as your one and only Savior, if you believe that He died to pay for your sins in full and that He rose again, and you have asked God for the forgiveness that He offers, and you know that He has saved you and He has taken up residence within you and He has changed you from the inside out.

You don’t have to know all the theology that goes along with it. All you need to know is to be able to tell your children what God has done for you. That’s what they did.

What does this Passover lamb mean? They didn’t talk about Jesus who was coming 2,000 years later. They said, well, this is what He did for us coming out of Egypt.

You might feel awkward. Push through it. Push past the awkwardness.

eventually you’ll get to where it’s not awkward anymore. When I sat down and tried to do a Bible study with my older two children for the first time, there was so much giggling, I was ready to knock them both out. They thought it was playtime.

This is serious stuff. It’s just awkward trying to get children that age to. .

. Some of you are thinking, well, that doesn’t sound very much fun to me either, sitting down having a Bible study with you. No, we sit and we kind of have a conversation about what’s going on in the text.

And they’ve gotten where they enjoy it now, But let me tell you, it was rough the first few times. But you’ve got to push through the awkwardness and say, what’s on the other side? This opportunity to tell them about what God’s done for them is worth the awkwardness.

It’s worth pushing forward. You might feel like you’re not a great role model. You say, well, I’m not a super Christian myself.

What have I got to teach them? Let me tell you this. You may feel like you’re not a great role model because God’s still working on you, and you’re still imperfect, and you’ve still got a long way to go, that’s good.

Tell them that. Be honest with them about that. I think we do our kids a disservice when we pretend we’ve got all the answers and we’ve got it all together.

Because then they grow up realizing they don’t have all the answers and don’t have it all together and they think, what’s wrong with me? Be honest with your kids. In an age-appropriate way, obviously.

But be honest with your kids about your struggles. Be honest with your kids about where God is growing you and where you have room to work on. Bring them along in what God’s doing in your life so that the relationship that you have with God becomes a real thing for them so that they see what a real relationship with God looks like.

Be honest with the struggles. And if you’re not a great role model, tell them about what God’s doing in your life. And meanwhile, ask God to help you be the role model that you ought to be.

If you’re thinking, I’m not the great Christian role model, I need to be for my kids, because you can’t be on your own. It’s something He has to do in you. Ask Him.

Ask Him and commit to doing that. So if God’s placed somebody in your life this morning, and I suspect that He has, if He’s placed somebody in your life this morning that you can tell the story to of what God’s done for you, it’s your privilege. It’s not just your responsibility, but it’s your privilege to have that opportunity to tell His story of the salvation that He’s provided.

And Israel received that salvation. They received it from physical death through the sacrifice of a lamb. They were faced with the prospect of actual physical death until a lamb was sacrificed.

Folks, we are faced with the prospect of spiritual death. We’re faced with the prospect of being separated from God in eternity, for all eternity, in a place called hell. And we’re faced with that very real inevitable prospect other than the fact that there was a lamb who was sacrificed for us.

And the New Testament identifies that lamb as Jesus Christ. John the Baptist saw Jesus and said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And the New Testament tells us that that Old Testament Passover lamb that was sacrificed was a picture of what Jesus Christ was going to do for us. We were facing the inevitable judgment of God.

And the only way of escape was that a lamb was sacrificed. Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, shed His blood and died on the cross to pay for our sins in full. So that that judgment we deserved because of our sin, because of all of our disobedience toward God, and we’re all guilty of disobedience toward God, that He died so that that judgment we deserved for our disobedience would pass over us.

So that we would be spared if we were hidden behind the blood of the Lamb that was slain. And this morning, let me tell you, if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, for you to be able to teach somebody else about this salvation, you’ve got to have it yourself. And it really is as simple as understanding that we’ve sinned against God and we deserve His judgment.

That there’s no way for us to escape His judgment other than for there to be a Lamb slain for us. And Jesus Christ was that Lamb of God who was slain. And He took full responsibility for our sins.

He was nailed to the cross where He shed His blood and died in our place to pay for every sin we will have ever committed. And not because of any good that we could do, not because of anything we could earn or deserve, but simply because Jesus Christ died in our place. God now offers us salvation.

He offers to forgive our sins. He offers to cleanse us and change us. And He offers us eternal life with Him if we will believe that Jesus died for us and rose again.

And we’ll ask that forgiveness.