Leon Fontaine - Leaving A Legacy
It's interesting when you hear the story of Moses who was probably his name is in the Bible. If you ever look at the word Moses in the Concord and just check how many times you see the name Moses in the Bible. It's stunning. It's just. I didn't count them but it's just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. And it's all through the Old Testament, the New Testament. Moses is an amazing figure in the Bible.
Now, if you know the story of Moses, you'll know that the children of Israel were slaves in Egypt. They were becoming too powerful. And so the Pharaoh, I think it was Ramses at that time, put out an order that every baby boy that was born will be thrown in the river to the crocodiles, killed. And so Moses' mom kept him and refused to do that with her son. She kept him for three months hidden in the house. And at three months she knew she wouldn't be able to keep him any longer. She fashioned a little ark, a little boat. She put him in this little boat, and she put him strategically amongst the reeds along the river.
Now, the Bible doesn't go into a lot of detail but as you check out the story across the Bible, you're gonna learn some things. She didn't just float him down the Nile and hope something happen. They took him to a strategic place where the Pharaoh's daughter would go bathing. So Moses sister, he had an older sister came along and stood watch over this ark that was sitting in the reeds along the river. The mother of the, the Pharaoh, the king's daughter came out to bathe and she heard the crying of baby Moses and went and got him out of the reeds.
The little Hebrew girl, the sister of Moses comes running over to them and says, would you like me to find you a wet nurse or someone that can breastfeed this baby for you? And she said yes. So she went and got Moses mom. This one incredible woman got Moses' mom and brought her mom, Moses' mom over there and for the next two to four years, just understanding the culture of breastfeeding at that time. She would have raised and taught little Moses, her son about who he was. Then it says when he was weaned, he turned him over completely. I don't know what that means, if she wasn't in his life at all. But the Pharaoh's daughter then trained him an Egypt, in the ways of Egypt. Because he was in the royal household, he would have had an amazing education. He'd have learned everything from magic to warfare.
The Bible gives us hints that this man was powerful in warfare, powerful in words. That he would had been incredibly intelligent man, powerful man, persuasive man. And when he was an adult, he was out walking one day, and he saw an Egyptian mistreating a Hebrew. All right. He's a Hebrew, raised as an Egyptian. He goes and kills the Egyptian, buries his body in the sand. And there is this draw of him for him to his people. A little later on, he goes out again and he sees two Hebrews fighting. And he tries to calm them down and they who you? Would you gonna kill us like you did to the Egyptian? He thought it was a secret that he buried him in the sand. And he realized that the word was out. He had killed an Egyptian. The king was upset. He ran for his life and Moses goes into the desert.
And you know the story of how forty years later. I haven't got time to go, it's an incredible story. Forty years later, God through a burning bush and words and speaks to Moses, has him go back into Egypt, take on the new king which was probably his step-brother who he was raised with and tell him let God's people go. The ten plagues, you know the story. But I want to focus today of the fact that Moses was raised by two moms. At a very young age, he had his Hebrew mom who would have taught him about God. That you are a child of God. There's a call of God on your life. That God has wonderfully made you. He has a purpose for your life. God will protect you and bless you and keep you. All the things that they would teach their children. Then he has his Egyptian mom who her culture is partying and just anything you want. You can imagine in the Pharaoh's household all the sin. And when you study how cheap life was, how they dominated and killed and had their way as the Pharaoh's did. Moses was raised in one of the most sinful homes.
So everyone of our children are gonna feel the pull and the call of the world. Everyone of our children have to grow up in a world where Jesus is Lord over those who give Him the Lordship of their life. But 2 Corinthians 4:4, says Satan is the god of this world. And so this world pulls at our children. The Bible teaches us in the book of Hebrews and I'm gonna be going through this fast so I could slow down. But it takes about an hour to get through this message. And so the Bible says in Hebrews that Moses forsook the temptations, the money, the partying, the extreme power, who he could have been as the son of a Pharaoh. It says he forsook it. He walked away from it knowing that he was moving towards the Messiah. That he would rather serve the God, you know, the God of the universe. And so he made those decisions. It's crucial that we raise our children in the ways of God.
Now, when your kids grow up, I'm not saying that if you don't raise your kids right that you as a parent are responsible for them not serving God. That's not even true because as kids grow up, they have their own will. Hello! Let me set some parents free for a minute. God had two kids and He raised them pretty well and then they disobeyed Him. Now, what's amazing to me is this. The impact that I can prove that the Hebrew mother had on Moses was at the most four years. And then the amount of time that the Egyptian mother had him in the family would have been 36 years. Yet, something took place as she was looking after her son. In 2 Timothy 3:14-15, it says, "But don't let it faze you. Stick with what you learned and believed, sure of the integrity of your teachers why, you took in the sacred Scriptures with your mother's milk"!
What did he say? That you were taking in the scriptures, the powerful word of God even while you were taking in your mother's milk. Isn't that incredible? That a mom has an impact. And by the word child here if you look it up that is used, actually means even in the womb. This is an infant that is not even just born. It's a word that is use for the fetus if you want to call it that. But it's the child in the womb. The child out of the womb. That this child is being impacted by this mother even when she is breastfeeding it. So before it even has a great understanding of its language and he can hear teaching about God, the presence of God, the presence of peace, the presence of joy. The presence, that his presence brings to his people is impacting this child. And as she is teaching him the word even as a little one as the language begins to come along. Whether it's one-year old or two-year old. We begin to understand something. And then by three and four. They're being taught about God and who they are.
You see, we often think that when we train our children, that it's more important to work out that they share properly. And we do our teaching on the defensive a lot of times. But there's got to be an offensiveness about, I don't mean being offended. I mean like an offense about teaching. Who they are? Where they come from? Where they're going? That God is their God. They're made in His likeness and His image. There's a greatness about you. God will protect you. He will go before you. He will love you. He will be there for you. You are special in the eyes of God. All of these things must be taught into our children to such a degree that in the book of Timothy as you read it. It teaches us there that faith, this faith in God. This faith to move in the things of God can come down generations. That in Timothy's case, his grandmother's faith was passed on to her daughter and from that daughter to Timothy her son. It says that it moves.
And in Deuteronomy 4:9, it says, "Teach what you've seen and heard to your children and your grandchildren". Let me speak to the grandmothers here for a minute. Sometimes we think our job is done but not according to God. God says that the grandchildren, are the grandmothers teach as well to the grandchildren the things of God. I've noticed amongst the new moms coming up today that grandma Google seems to be the most asked over grandma. It seems that they want to know all the stuff about breastfeeding and potty training and Google it. And of course, it's not that Google is a bad thing. But God has designed the family to be generational. And that grandmothers and mothers and children. That there is this generational blessing that keeps coming down. Mothering the children, being there, raising these children is absolutely crucial.
In Psalm 78, it teaches us about passing this on to the next generation. And it even tells us what? God's fame. God's fortune. We must fill our children's imaginations with God's Word. The Bible says that God's Word, God's principles are so powerful. That when you teach them even to little children. That it's like seeds planted in soil and that those seeds will come up. Here's Moses who's taught at his young, young age by his Hebrew mom. And she taught him who he was, where he's going, who God is. God's got a plan for his life. That God is all powerful. That God is above all God. There are no other God. It is God. This Savior God of the universe is your God. She taught these things to such a degree and imparted those into him that even the pull of Egypt and the pull of sin and the pull of fame and the pull of power and riches and sexual and all these things. That he followed God in his life.
And I really want to encourage all of us to see the stunning value of moms, dads and as we teach our children the Word of God. If we don't teach them the Word of God, we just teach them to be good, to be respectful. Now, these are all important things to teach. But these things don't teach them who they are in their identity. And so one of the crucial teachings to children is who are you? What is your identity? And if you don't teach a child his identity. Today, we've got all this secretive, don't even tell them if they're a male or a female. That's ridiculous. Just so we all know. Okay? The Word says that we teach them what God says about them in the Bible. And so teach them who they are in Christ. Teach them who they are in their future. Teach them how much God loves them, that God created them, that God is there for them.
All of these teachings is what brings stability to that human psyche, brings stability to this person to be who God made them to be. And will there be things they struggle with? Of course, everybody in this room struggles with something in who they are? Who am I? Where am I going? What do I do? All of us have struggles. But we turn to Jesus and to God's Word to take a look who we are. There some special things the Word says. I don't share sex quickly that we must teach our children. And if we do, we can be like Moses' mother watched him raised for decades in a horrible area where the pull of sin and the temptation of sin is on him day after day with the greatest temptation you can ever imagine, and he stood strong. What did she do? Number one, she taught him God's Word.
In Deuteronomy 6:6-8, and it's important that moms get the Word inside of them first, and then inside of their children. You can't teach them what you don't have. And that's something I can teach on for quite a while, that the way the Bible is taught means you have to have that revelation before you teach it and so we have to walk in it. The second thing after teaching, the Bible teaches us to train our children. See, teaching is more of information, but training is like coaching. If I'm gonna coach soccer players, I have to be on the field watching them. This one doesn't run faster. This one doesn't turn properly. This one doesn't pivot properly. This one gotta pump their arms faster. So if you're gonna train them, this is ongoing as they are... So you can't raise children with a TV. You can't raise children with just a movie. You have to be there and as the little ones grow up the things you teach them.
Now, you train them in the teaching. This is the teaching. Don't do that to your sister. Look at your sister. Yes, she loves you, too, sweetie. Share your toys. Look at her smile. She smiles. And you begin to take this thought that you taught them like sharing and being loving. And now you train them in it as they're playing among. So there's teaching. Then there's training. In Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way they should go, when they're old, they will not turn from it". Now, it's not guaranteeing that you have to dominate and force your kids to serve God. They've got freewill. But when all of that teaching and all of God's Word is planted in their hearts and they grow and rise up. They've got the best ability to make choices. And if you've got kids, that for some reason they've turned their back on God. You'll be at peace. The Word that is in them will come up.
Hello! The Word according to 1 Peter 2:24 is unstoppable, unkillable. It's still there in the soil of their heart and it's coming up. So don't you worry about it. There's a, just continue to believe God. A third thing that we're gonna do for our children is to provide for our children. And, you know, that's not hard for everyone to understand. But to provide for them all the things they need from home to food to education. 1 Timothy 5:8, says that literally is not, anyone who will not provide for their own children. Of course, that's got ramifications with broken families, etcetera. A fourth thing it talks about is to nurture their children. That means you don't just correct them. You don't just teach them things and then coach them. But this nurturing is how you do it.
Do you do it with a loving value? Do you do it with a compassion and a love? A tenderness. The Bible teaches us that we don't make them angry. Don't irritate them or make them so that you're just so abrupt in anger and these kids aren't being nurtured. This means reared tenderly trained as children, not just dominated. You can't take a child and dominate them into the place God's called them to be because God has given every human being freewill. And freewill means that your spouse can't dominate you. You can't dominate your kids. You can train them and raise them. At a certain age, they're gonna make all of their own decision.
So nurturing is crucial in Ephesians 6:4 says. And then the Bible actually tell us to control our children in 1 Timothy 4:12. And I think those are important things because we live in an age right now where we don't want to do anything to stop that little personality from exalting itself. Let it scream on a plane in a, you know, in a store. Let it just, you know, manifest its irritable angry little personality. And mom's think because of Dr. Google. How, that don't try to stop. That's ridiculous!
The Bible's very clear that we must discipline them. We must control. We don't let them just do whatever they want because when mom's done, getting them at kindergarten. Teachers gotta teach them if mom didn't teach them that. Okay? And if they can't teach it there, then life's gotta teach them that. And if life can't teach them that, jail teaches them that. So we must discipline, control, teach these children that you're not living alone on this world. And so there's a respect and we must, there are consequences. You know, you can make any decision you want because you have freewill. But there's a consequence with every decision that you make. And when they learn that, they get a real good understanding.
And the sixth thing I'll give you is just to love your children. In Titus 2:4, it says there that the older women should teach the younger women to love their husbands and their children. So love must be more than I have goosebumps when I see you. Actually, the goosebumps go in about two years. But when you look at love is valuing. I'm so glad that I had grandmothers who are absolutely in love with me. When I think about my Baba on my mom side. My grandma on my dad side. And all I can think of is how incredibly loved I was. When I think about my mom, how she raised me and trained me. And I look at how much she values me.
When I look at my wife and I see the things that, the decisions that she made so unselfishly year after year with our five children. And the things that she did, I just stand in awe as I watch. And I watch my girls become mothers. I mean, doesn't that mess with you folks? And you just see this generational thing that when moms are respected, loved, valued. Do not let this world remove the incredible honor, integrity, value, and importance of mothering children. It's not just something you do on the side as you pursue something else. It is crucial for the rest of our lives as we parent that we make sure that each generation is being prepared to serve God.
When you study the Word, you begin to recognize that God is into generations. When you begin to look at God's Word, you'll find out that even when He picked Abraham to cut the covenant with, that it was because how he looked at his home and his children. As a church, as a people let's value. We need to make sure we understand that God made men and women equal. You'll never win if you and me sit down with a Bible to see if men should dominate women, and women should submit to men. I'll show you. That no, no. There's a mutuality for that. We submit one to the other. We love and appreciate and value one another when it comes to this. Everything that you've poured into those little ones. You know, others might not value it. Even the children might not value it. But all that teachings from God's Word is like seed that has been planted in their hearts.
And sometimes that seed doesn't come up. If you ever had when your kids have kids. Also, they look at you and you go, "Mom, you're incredible". Because all of a sudden some of the teaching begin to rise up. And some of the things they see and begin to know as they go through these different seasons of life. The Bible has got tons and tons of great principles to help new moms, new dads. But God's Word works. You know, it's amazing to me and I've got to shut it down here now. But when you begin to get on to what modern psychology says is the correct way to raise kids.
Make sure that you take it through God's Word. They'll tell you that you as a parent shouldn't decide what gender they are. You shouldn't decide any of these things. These kids decide. Well, the Bible disagrees with that. It says teach them, train them, bring them up the way God created them. And as you do that, you bring such peace and such wisdom and such contentment to children when they know who they are, why they're here, who God is. That yes, this is a fallen world. Yes, you're gonna go through times of confusion and probably every area of your life. But if you take God's Word and you teach them God's Word. It's amazing how they begin to have a confidence in life.