Train Up a Child
It Starts With Love
Training up a child is a journey
The road to this journey must be paved with love
The journey will face immaturity, selfishness, and a host of other character issues
But love will bring correction and discipline
At the end of the journey of love awaits a promise land
The goal of training a child in love is to see they never depart from it
God is love and all He wants for us is love fulfilled in two areas
Love God and love your neighbor
This type of love will never fail and will accomplish all other issues in life
Love is what we never want to see our children depart from
Love never fails
It Starts With Love
Proverbs 22:6…
Train a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not turn from it.
More than likely you have heard this verse.
It is the key verse for every parent.
So, what does it mean?
How would you describe the training parents are to give?
What is the way a child should go?
What is it a child should never depart from?
How comes so many parent’s hearts are broken
by the way a child has lived their life?
The answer is both spiritual and naturally practical.
God wants all of us to be born again
so He might be our Father.
So, if God is a father what would be His
foundation to training His children?
When the Children of Israel came out of Egypt
they were as infants.
They were afraid of God and said to Moses…
Go near and listen to all that the Lord our God says.
Then tell us whatever the Lord our God tells you.
We will listen and obey."
Deuteronomy 6:5
The Lord heard their request and said…
"I have heard what this people said to you. Everything they said was good. 29 Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!
Deuteronomy 5:28-29
God, like every good parent, wants everything
to go well with their children forever.
The problem is the children were only used
to being oppressed slaves in Egypt.
There was a journey to get them to the Promise Land.
A journey of maturity.
Look at Deuteronomy 6:1-9…
These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, promised you.
Here is where it start…
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 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 when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
It starts with love God.
LOVE IS LEARNED!!!
The Children of Israel feared God
and had to learn to love Him.
The fear of the Lord is…
The beginning of knowledge and wisdom.
Psalms 111:10; Proverbs 1:7, 9:10
A fountain of life.
Proverbs 14:27
The key to the treasure of
salvation, wisdom and knowledge.
Isaiah 33:6
Love for God is to be learned
by tasting that the Lord is good.
Proverbs 34:8
There is a second part to love which Jesus teaches…
Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
Matthew 22:37-40
Every commandment,
every right action,
comes from love.
Sadly, we are born with a selfish nature
that causes us to act foolish.
Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child;
The rod of correction will drive it far from him.
Proverbs 22:15 NKJV
Discipline in love brings correction.
Proverbs 3:12; Hebrews 12:6
Love demonstrates affection and correction.
Hebrews 12:5-6…
And you have forgotten that word of encouragement
that addresses you as sons:
"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
6 because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."
The foundation to maturity must be LOVE.
Training up a child must be established in love.
The way of training many times uses
rebukes and hardships, but…
Always must be done in love.
The Children of Israel, being led by Moses
to the Promise Land..
Needed discipline and hardships to teach them
and train them to prosper in the Promise Land.
Hebrews 12:11…
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.
Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness
and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Love is more than momentary pleasure.
Love aims for a rich harvest for a life well lived.
God is love.
The more we understand love
in the context of who God is…
The better off we will be
in training our children.
Training up our children in the way
they should go is found in one word LOVE.
Scripture Reading NIV
Proverbs 22:6
6 Train a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not turn from it.
Hebrews 12:4-13
4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:
"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
6 because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."
7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! 10 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13 "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
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