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Title: Means of Grace: Parents
Worship Leader: Andew Hageman
Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: 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, 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. 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.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 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. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Notes:

1. General Principle: Major way God blesses kids spiritually is through parents
A. We hear most conversions are by age 12
B. Proverbs 22:6: "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old(comma) he will not turn from it."

2. Kids thrive spiritually only as parents take their own spiritual lives seriously
A. God addresses parents instead of their kids

3. For parents to take spiritual life seriously, they must grow in their understanding of God
A. Gained through the Bible
1. Parents grow to understand the Bible as they gather in church
2. Parents grow to understand the Bible as they study it at home

4. For parents to take spiritual life seriously, they must actually love and fear God
A. Parents must have a fear of God
B. Parents must have a love for God

5. If kids are to thrive spiritually, parents must make their spiritual training at the core of their family life
A. Deeply stamp God's Word on the minds of your children
B. God gets personal about this
C. What "impressing" looks like