Josh 4:21-24, And he said to the sons of Israel, "When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, 'What are these stones?' then you shall inform your children, saying,' Israel crossed this Jordan on dry ground.' "For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed, just as the Lord your God had done to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed; that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, so that you may fear the Lord your God forever." 
	In this morning’s passage there are two emphasized key realities that need to be infused into the depths of our beings. First, we are to teach our posterity Who God is and all that He has done. Second, in that living and daily instruction of our lives, others will come to know and will recognize the Lord and give Him the glory that He is due because of Who He is.
In contemplating what is before us, there should well up within us that thanksgiving unto the Lord for what He is teaching us about Himself through the actions of His hands operating fully and miraculously within each one of our lives. We may not see the physical parting of the waters before our feet, but His does go before us and He does make the way perfectly prepared for the walk that we have on this earth.
	As well, in that walk, we are to teach the succeeding generations, whether our children, or our children’s children, or our children’s children’s children about how God has manifested His hand of power and grace and mercy within the daily expression of His love for us. It is our testimony before our posterity which truly shows the truth of Who God is and all that He has done. In that constant expression of His living power declared by the course of how we live and how we count on Him and how we conduct ourselves as His people, others will come to know that He is real. They will see and have to acknowledge that He is the Lord God Almighty; that He is the Creator of all that is created; that He goes before us; that He loves such as ourselves unto Himself by the only way of salvation - the death and resurrection of His Only Begotten Son.
	 These truths are emphasized over and over again with the view to the fact that the teaching of how God has manifested Himself in the lives of the parents needs to become the fundamental teaching of Who God is to the sons and daughters. God is to be declared within the familial unit on a constant basis and with determined dedication. 
Please consider one of the very first times that God gave this charge in Ex 12:26+27. Here, the Lord declared that the people were to commemorate each year the Passover of the Angel of Death for those who were covered by the blood of the Passover lamb.
Ex 12:26+27, And it will come about when your children will say to you, 'What does this rite mean to you?' that you shall say,' It is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord who passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians, but spared our homes.' "And the people bowed low and worshiped. 
    	It was absolutely commanded that the parents were to teach the children about the meaning and the purpose of the yearly feast of the Passover commemoration. They were to honor the Lord by teaching each succeeding generation exactly why they were part of the feast of Passover with all its stipulations and requirements. The Power of the Lord’s saving grace upon the people of His Calling was to be celebrated and revered. Each person within the nation was to know, despite the passage of years and decades and centuries, what power God had used to set His people free.
	Then, as well, in Ex 13:14-16, with regard to the redemption and the dedication of the first-born, the parents, the elders, the priests, the community as a whole were to teach and to reinforce the fullness of what God had done. It was to be manifestly evident why this manner of dealing with the first born, whether man or animal, was to be performed unto the Lord.
	Ex 13:14-16, And it shall be when your son asks you in time to come, saying, 'What is this?' then you shall say to him, 'With a powerful hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery. 'And it came about, when Pharaoh was stubborn about letting us go, that the Lord killed every first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man and the first-born of beast. Therefore, I sacrifice to the Lord the males, the first offspring of every womb, but every first-born of my sons I redeem.' "So it shall serve as a sign on your hand, and as phylacteries on your forehead, for with a powerful hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt." 
    	Over and over, again and again, the stress was put on the older of the community to teach the younger. Parents were to teach their children. But it did not stop there. The whole of the older generations had the commitment put upon them to instruct the younger generations about the Lord. And lest anyone would just abdicate that responsibility to someone else, The Lord made it very clear that everyone had an obligation to participate.
	This instructional requirement needed to be understood and practiced within the whole community. It was not only with the words that were spoken. It was with the actions that were part of the ceremony and every other ritual as declared by God. It was with the manner in which the community so livingly and daily honored the commandments of the Lord God Almighty. 
Teaching is a living day after day expression of the relationship that the parents, that the grandparents, that the priests and ministers, that the elders, that the aged lived before the children, generation after generation after generation. It was not sufficient to just tell the younger ones the story. The true teaching happened as the children witnessed how the love of the Lord and the commitment to Him was displayed in each parental interaction of each day with one anoter. This was reinforced to all by Moses in Deut 4:5-13.
	Deut 4:5-13, See, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it. So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.' "For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the Lord our God whenever we call on Him? "Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today? "Only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your sons and your grandsons. Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, 'Assemble the people to Me, that I may let them hear My words so they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.' "And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the very heart of the heavens: darkness, cloud and thick gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form — only a voice. So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. 
The same is true of us today. We are to show our youth, by the actual actions and activities and interactions of today, how much God means to us! We are to live our lives before our children as we should consciously and always live before the Lord God! We, individually, as parents, as grandparents, as members of this fellowship have that responsibility unto the One Who Created and Who sustains us! We are to manifest the new life that we have received as His free gift of love and grace and mercy in Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Our young ones, our youth, our young adults, our children of any age need to see that Jesus does make that difference in the course of our sojourn here and now!
Today, we live before them as we face the onslaught of the course of this age! We are to make it very evident that we trust in the power and the might and the Sovereignty of God over all the chaos and uncertainty and disheveled upheaval of everything that used to be our normal daily routine. 
As a result of our current pandemic, all that was in place in our society has dissolved, as we well know. Our younger generations need to see how the people of God deal with that fluctuating devastation of all that we were used to in the living light of our service unto Christ. 
It is actually so amazing how brutally swiftly our world has been turned upside down. Everything seems to be falling apart. Our finances are shattered. Our job situation has crumbled. There are mass protests and violence bubbling over as the frustration and the anger and the resentment and the hopelessness of this time is exploding under the catastrophic weight of the loss of all stability. 
Our youth, our children, whatever their ages, are looking to see what is really true and what is merely vocalized platitudes. We are to be the brilliant showcase of the reality of Our Risen and Victorious Jesus Christ despite all the muddled noise and distraction that could so easily cause us to lose our way! 
He is the Lord! We are under His banner of protection and love! We have the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to guide our every footstep, our every comment, our every action, our every decision. 
Our younger generations should be seeing us turning to the Word of God as never before in our earnest dedication to Him. They should hear us continually and constantly praying with all the complete desire and trust that God will rule and overrule according to the fulfillment of His plan and His purpose in our lives. It should be earnestly evident that we face today together, as with one heart for the glory of God to be seen especially as everything else of this world crumbles away in decay and dust.
We are never to be anxious, but prayerfully standing firm in the steadfast reality that no matter what happens, God is in charge! He is our shield and our hope. He has it all well in hand.
Listen to the blessing that is ours, as declared in Deut 6:1-7, as we so honor the Lord with our dedicated and consecrated and utmost filial commitment. This blessing was voiced on the Children of Israel, but it is fully ours in Jesus as we trust and obey each day, each moment of each day. This is not just in order to face only individual happenstances or situations. It is not just as needed to meet the most current crises. It is the truth of Who now is our very life. In accordance with that manifested operational work of God in us, we are those shining witnesses of His Glory and His Victory to this entire realm.
Deut 6:1-7, "Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons 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 up. 
	Moses, in Deut 28:1-12, gave further detail to what is our heritage of blessing as the people of God in Jesus Christ. While it was a physical blessing of that day, the reality of Christ makes all the vast storehouses of the lavished heart of God’s love upon us to be ours today right now. Accordingly, we are to be those anchored and unshaken witnesses and testimonies of God in our homes, to our spouses, our children, our parents, our siblings, all our other relatives, our neighbors, our community members, and even our enemies. All should see that there is a truth about the heart of our relationship with God that flows and overflows forth from our lives to touch their lives.
        Deut 28:1-12, "Now it shall be, if you will diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your beasts, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. "The Lord will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; they shall come out against you one way and shall flee before you seven ways. The Lord will command the blessing upon you in your barns and in all that you put your hand to, and He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God gives you. The Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you will keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and walk in His ways. So all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord; and they shall be afraid of you. And the Lord will make you abound in prosperity, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your beast and in the produce of your ground, in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. The Lord will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. 
    	It was put forth by King Solomon, in 1 Kings 8:41-43, at the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem that the world will come to know who the Lord is. The foreigners will want to know about God. The Gentile nations, you and me, would find that God has opened the doors of His dwelling place to any and to all who will but call upon His name and seek to know Him in the truth of His power and His grace and His mercy.
	1 Kings 8:41-43, "Also concerning the foreigner who is not of Thy people Israel, when he comes from a far country for Thy name's sake (for they will hear of Thy great name and Thy mighty hand, and of Thine outstretched arm); when he comes and prays toward this house, hear Thou in heaven Thy dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to Thee, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know Thy name, to fear Thee, as do Thy people Israel, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by Thy name. 
    	We bring this morning to a close with the continued words of Solomon’s pray unto the Lord in verses 59-61 of this 8th Chapter of 1 Kings. 1 Kings 8:59-61, And may these words of mine, with which I have made supplication before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, that He may maintain the cause of His servant and the cause of His people Israel, as each day requires, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no one else. Let your heart therefore be wholly devoted to the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes and to keep His commandments, as at this day." 
	Let us walk each day in the knowledge of the goodness and the greatness and the awesomeness of Our Lord God. Let our lives be the living expression that will teach our children the true and eternal life that is Jesus Christ! We need to be the brilliant beacons of the truth to all that God reigns Supreme and Victoriously over the entirety of the forces that have been gathered against Him. We, as His Chosen people, His Church, proclaim within every one of our homes and our neighborhoods that …the Lord is God; there is no one else…. So be it!
And he said to the sons of Israel, "When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, 'What are these stones?' then you shall inform your children, saying,' Israel crossed this Jordan on dry ground.' "For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed, just as the Lord your God had done to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed; that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, so that you may fear the Lord your God forever." Amen.

	This morning’s benediction is Ps 71:5. For Thou art my hope; O Lord God, Thou art my confidence from my youth. Amen.