This morning as we move towards God's Word, I want to ask you a question. The question is not just for parents, it's not just for grandparents. It's for a body that we would call a covenant body. We are a covenant-believing church. We believe that God moves through His body to reveal great things to the people who are in His body and those who are going to be members of His body. For many weeks we have been talking about the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit is the one who draws people to Christ. One of the means by which the Holy Spirit does that is through the covenant body, through the covenant body, a family of moms and dads living a life of faith before the children. Through grandparents doing the very same thing, through siblings doing the same thing, and yes, through the larger body of Christ, from all of those who are in the choir to all those who are in the balcony, even as we baptize infants, we as a body make a commitment that we will assist in the spiritual nurture of this child. And in doing so, children often, through seeing something that's something being Jesus and the life of another, begin to ask questions. So here's my question to you, not just parents, but to all of this body. If a child was to ask you today, what is the meaning of these testimonies? What is the meaning of this book? What is the meaning of this table? How would you answer? What would you say and how would you say it? Deuteronomy 6 tells us the answer very simply, very beautifully. But I believe that the answer that we're instructed to give may not be the answer we would give. So let's lean in. Deuteronomy 6, beginning in verse 20, please stand for the reading of God's Word. When your son asks you and time to come, what is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you? Then you shall say to your son, we were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders great and grievous against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all as household before our eyes. And he brought us out from there that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. The Lord commanded us to do all these statutes to fear the Lord our God for our good always. That he might preserve us alive as we are this day. And it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God as he has commanded us. This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please be seated. Father, we recognize that it is your Word. We approach it soberly, humbly, expectantly. We know Holy Spirit that you are the one that illuminates the very words that are here in Scripture, in errant and fallible, perfect. We ask that you would so shine now that we would see and hear and believe and behave as we should as a result of this glorious gospel. This we ask in the Holy Name of Jesus our Savior, amen. In the Bible, there are a few places where you see great instruction for parenting. There is none greater than this. The Proverbs, full of wisdom as well, instructions in the epistles, but this passage tells us what is going to happen. When your son asks, when your children ask, do you see the assumption? The assumption is, they are going to ask. Kids ask questions. Some of you right now are saying, oh, I know. I have a child that is so inquisitive. He wears this out. Questions like, what does that button mean? What happened if I push it? And if he drives down the road, what will happen is he sees an airplane and starts asking questions about, how can it fly? Who is in it? What are they serving? Have we ever flown questions, endless questions. Children ask questions based on the things they see. That's why I love the great commission publications, children's curriculum title. Do you know what it is? Show me Jesus. When children see things, they ask questions. And when they see people who are passionate about something, they ask questions. And when they see that there's something, there's someone, Jesus, they ask questions. And so here is written before us. There's an assumption. When your son asks you in time to come. But why would he ask? The question he's asking specifically is, what is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you? Well, why would he ask specifically about the testimonies, the statutes and the rules? Well, look with me probably in your Bible to the next column, the column to the left beginning in verse 4 of chapter 6. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Listen to this commandment. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. Now I want you to lean in. The reason why the son, the reason why children are going to ask questions about these testimonies, these statutes, these rules, is because they've heard them. They have seen them. And they come to a point, I believe, when they're prompted by the Holy Spirit to begin to ask the deep questions of dad, of mom, of others who believe these things. You see, verse 7, 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, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob to give you, with great and good cities that you did not build and houses full of all good things that you did not fill. And sisters that you did not dig and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant. And when you eat and are full, then take care less you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery. You see, well commanded, the God's Word should be so important to us, so rich to us, so deep in us. That it's constantly coming out of us. That our children see it because it's in you. They see it because they know it's important to you. They see it in the morning and during the day and at night, they see that when you are perplexed by some decision that you are going to the Word, they see that the very truths are present. And He says, so when you live this way, they will ask and when your child asks, this is how you're to answer. Now right now many parents are feeling deep discouragement. I want you to lean in. I think so often parenting conferences and books are very helpful, but sometimes in fact often I think they have unintended consequences. Where at the end of it you feel so guilty for all your failures. You feel so ill equipped as a parent that you just simply feel beat down and discouraged that this task is too great and you can't do it. And you felt so miserably in times past to lead your family devotions, to be consistent to help your children memorize scripture, to answer their questions. You feel so deeply discouraged that you miss the essence, that which is most important, that God is the one who gave you those children. And God is the one who gave you the command. And God is the one who begins the work and will complete it. And in the covenant body He will use you. But when you feel so deeply discouraged by your failures and you have failed, it's so of I. When you feel so deeply discouraged instead of looking to the source of ultimate encouragement, instead of remembering that there's one who died for all those failures, you begin to think of it in terms of your own ability, your own self, your own strength, your own wisdom, your own control. And when you do that it leads you away from the source which is our Savior, the cross, our King. We forget. Listen, listen with joy to the answer that we have here to how we're to answer the question. Look with me at verse 21. After your son asks this question, then you shall say to your son, this is the answer. We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders great and grievous against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all us household before our eyes. And he brought us out from there that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give our fathers. I want to stop there for a minute. This is the first part of the answer. What do you notice about how he answers? The child's first question was what is the meaning of the testimonies? Then what does the meaning of the statutes of the law? How does he answer? He answers with testimonies. He answers with the story. He answers in just a few sentences with the story of rescue, of great divine redemption. He answers his child's questions by saying, this is who we were. And this is who God is. And this is what God did to save us from this place, this position, this torture. He tells this story. He speaks of testimony. So often I think when our children come to us with questions, we don't tell the story. We just simply say, because God said, we just simply say things that are not bathed in the beautiful narrative from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation. But this is the history of redemption from beginning to end. And I think part of the reason is because we don't think we're equipped to do it. We think it would be too hard. Listen to what he says. His answer. We were Pharaoh slaves in Egypt. I want you to turn in your Bible to Exodus chapter 1. If you don't have one, just pull the blue, pew Bible out. Second book of the Bible, first chapter, verse 8. Listen to this. And begin to picture it. Now there are rows of new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, behold the people of Israel are too many. And they're too mighty for us. Come, let us still shrewdly with them unless they multiply. And if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land. Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. Verse 13. So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick. And in all kinds of work in the field, in all their work, they ruthlessly made them work as slaves. Now look with me at the second part of verse 15. The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, when you serve as a midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birth stool, if it is a son, you shall kill him. But if it is a daughter, she shall live. Picture it. This really happened. An evil, cruel leader, out of fear that his own country would be ruled by this people to Israel, put taskmasters over them to brutally beat them, to cause them to suffer great suffering. And so great was his instructions that he said, let's have the midwives actually kill the boys that are born. Because his father is answering his child's question, what does the meaning of the testimonies? He begins with this is who we were. We were slaves under this evil ruler. Slaves. Slaves. No freedom. Torture. Brokenness. Suffering. Now go back to Deuteronomy 6. He then says in verse 21, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Do you see the focus? The Lord is the one who brought us out of Egypt, but how do you do it? He did it with a mighty hand. Now listen to the father's instruction to his son about the greatness of God. I think so often as we answer our children's questions, we are not building this great character of who God is. Speaking of this mighty hand, he says, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous against Egypt and against Pharaoh, and all his household before, what does it say? Our eyes. We saw it. We saw the torture. We felt the torture. But then we saw the mighty hand of God at work. And don't you know as he speaks to his son, he's recounting the wonder of what God did to set the people free. He says he brought us out. And I want you to remember this line to bring us in. He brought us out to bring us in, verse 23, and he brought us out from there that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give our fathers. He's telling him of redemption. He's telling him of rescue. He's saying this is what God has done. This is the meaning of the testimonies. And because of the meaning of the testimonies, he now moves towards the statutes in the law, verse 24. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes. If the child said, why should we obey the statutes? The child's answer from the father would be because the Lord told us to. But it's in the narrative of a Redeemer. It's in the narrative of a rescuer. And the Lord commanded us to do all these things to fear the Lord our God for our good always. That he might preserve us alive as we are this day. That is the answer that he's giving to his son. So if your child comes to you, daddy, what are the meanings of these testimonies, these stories? What is the meaning of God's law? What is the meaning of this table? What do you say? Well, I want to talk just for a few moments before we come to the table about what you say, but also about how you say it. We, you tell your child, we're slaves. Do you remember before Christ? Can you imagine if you don't what it's like to be a slave to an evil enemy, Satan? Do you remember the thought of what it meant to have no salvation? Do you know that we have an enemy who roams around like a roaring lion seeking to devour this people? We were slaves. We were slaves to sin. We were separated from God, slaves, but the mighty hand of God brought us out to bring us in. The Lord showed signs and wonders. Great and grievous. Is that not a perfect description of the cross? Great and grievous. Great and grievous. God demonstrating His own love for us in this that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. That is our story. We were slaves and we have been set free by the work of Christ coming to the cross. The mighty hand of God at work and orchestrating that an infant would be born, king of kings and Lord of lords, that this child would grow into a boy and to a man. His ministry for three years would be in walking, being rejected as he taught. Climaxing in a moment when he was tortured by the very people he made, tortured, accused, murdered, great and grievous. When your children ask you, what is the meaning of these testimonies of this word? Do you go there? Do you take the time to say, let me tell you the story of rescue? Do you go there? You must. Working with high school students as long as I did, I saw one of the greatest dangers as this that we so focus on behavior and not on belief. Kids grow tired of just hearing of behavior. But when they really believe it begins to translate to the behavior we want to begin with. But so often when they ask us questions, we're too tired. We have too much to do. We don't know what we would say. We feel so discouraged because it's been so hard that we don't go here and say, let me tell you the meaning. We were slaves. I was a slave to sin. I was dead in my trespasses. I couldn't have a heart that would beat for God and he saved me. He saved me by providing a spirit who revealed to me the truth of what his son did. His son, you know what he did? He came obediently, lived obediently, died obediently that he might cover me and my righteousness would be his righteousness and the father sees him and I'm saved. I'm seen as I am free in Christ. That is the story. How do you tell your children? Tell them this story with great zeal. Do you live this story with great zeal? Right now, I know if I was sitting out there, I might be asking this question. What if my children stopped asking the questions? What if my children never asked the questions? If I'm not sure if they haven't or will or won't. Listen carefully. Don't give up hope and don't give in to control. Go to Deuteronomy 6 and ask God by His grace to help you begin living and continue living this story of rescue that you would love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. If you leave here today thinking, I will do that. Yes, I can and I will and my children will begin asking me questions. You will be deeply discouraged. I can't promise you that. I can't promise you this. Without God's power, you can't love Him. You can't, not as He calls us to. So you begin with grace. You begin with the story, telling it to yourself once again. You and I before Christ were slaves, far more tortured and broken than you know. You see, we weren't just sick, Ed. We were dead. We didn't have a heart that was a little bit ill. It couldn't beat for God and He caused it to beat. The reason we come to this table is because this table is a feast. It's a feast of remembrance of what God has done. This table represents that there are people, sinners. Those separated from God that God has loved and died for that they may have life. You may be here today wondering even why you're here. You may be a parent who thought you knew Jesus. You may be somebody who just kind of wondered off the streets because you're interested in what might be happening here. You may be a person who for the first time today is saying, I need to think about this Jesus. You may be a person who's saying today, I need to finally trust in this Jesus. Well, this gospel truth is for all of God's people. If that's you today, I'm so happy you're here. If that's you today, I pray that in this very moment you would simply pray, I need a Savior because I am a sinner. And Jesus is the one. It's that simple. Pray that prayer. And when you do, you are His. You will have just discovered, even as I spoke of the two young girls Miran Jackie today, that your name is written in heaven and it can never be erased. We come to this table to remember that truth. That is why we come. And that is what you and I should be telling our children, not just our own flesh and blood, but every covenant child of this church. I want to warn you that this table is not for non-believers. You should not take of this bread and this cup unless you would eat and drink judgment upon yourself. So as these elements are passed out, I urge you not to take but to contemplate and consider all that has been preached this morning. For those of you who know Christ, this is not a Presbyterian table. It's a table for believers to come and eat and drink that we might know the truth of this gospel narrative. No matter how you feel you are doing spiritually, you need these elements to be reminded that He is the one who has saved you and you are His.