From Strong Families = Strong Churches (Wake Forest, Aug 28–29, 2026). Scott Brown on the first commandment of parenting.

I have this first opening comment on the first commandment of parenting. I'd like you to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 22. Matthew 22 and find verse 35. That's Matthew 22 and verse 35 and you will recognize this famous passage of Scripture As the Lord Jesus Christ answering the question, which is the great commandment in the law? Verse 35, and one of them a lawyer asked him a question testing him and saying, Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?

And Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." I titled this message, The First Commandment of Parenting, and I probably would be better titled The First and Second commandment of parenting. But the reason I wanted to start here is we often think of child raising as a set of techniques to nail down.

We think of it in terms of input and output. If you work the right formula, if you check the right boxes, If you just turn the dials the right way, then all will be well. This is a mechanical way of thinking. It's the way of thinking that we are sort of bent to think, particularly as Americans. But, and there are critical techniques, and all of the messages that you'll hear will derive the techniques that the Word of God prescribes.

So there are really important techniques and you might say that this conference could be called the Ten Commandments of Parenting with each one of these messages Because we do need to know how to shepherd our little flocks. There are techniques. And this is a requirement actually of elders, pastors of churches. They must know how to shepherd their children, to shepherd their families, or else how will they know how to shepherd the Church of God. There are particular skills.

It's right to talk about skills and the Bible gives us these skills but they really start with a particular disposition of the heart and that is you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all your soul and all your mind. And so the first thing we must clear out in our minds is our love for God. And I would also add, and I won't elaborate on this, but loving your spouse is perhaps one of the most powerful elements of raising your children because if you do not love one another, if you don't have a tender heart toward one another, if you don't care for one another and treat one another right, then your children will have a hard time seeing the glory of God in their own lives. And so this is why the Lord Jesus said the greatest of these is love. So the first duty of child raising is delight in the Lord.

It's that love for God that that pours over every other part of your life. The best techniques are not going to win the day unless they are seasoned with love. Seasoned with love. And so in Matthew 22 here that we just read, Jesus is delivering the two greatest commandments. But I don't want us to miss a particular fact here.

Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 6. He's quoting Moses in the law and in Deuteronomy 6, Moses first of all charges the the heads of households of the children of Israel to obey the commandments of God. And then he says therefore you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. But he doesn't stop there. The implication, the manifestation, the proof of your love for God is that you'll teach your children diligently.

That's what he says in verse six, and these words which I command you today shall be in your heart, in other words they're real to you, and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes." So This love for God is proven by rising up and loving your children enough to teach them the Word of God. But it's the love that comes first, and that obedience pours forth. And it's very easy to have all the right techniques, but without love. I've seen this before.

You can have all the right outward techniques, but without a root system, without something nourishing those techniques, It all falls flat. Think about it like this. Think about cut flowers. You can pick a rose at the perfect moment. You can cut it in the right place at the right angle.

You can put it in the right temperature of water. And you can add the right preservative and you can put it in the perfect light. The technique was perfect, but in a few days it'll dry up because the roots were severed from the bud. And parenting is like that. It's easy to have right techniques severed from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

And you can have all the appearance of success for a while, but if your techniques are severed from the source of life, you're just making it very hard for your children. This can happen in a business, you can copy your competitors successes, and you can copy their principles, but unless you have the heart, it won't turn out the way that you think it will turn out. And so child raising in this mechanical view can become just an empty empty set of rituals and techniques that are disconnected from love. And so all of our child-raising was designed by God to be rooted in a real and happy love for Jesus Christ. And I want you to really ask yourself this question.

Am I here because I love Jesus Christ or I just wanna pick up a few new techniques or get a tune up? The apostle Paul told the Roman Church that whatever is not of faith is sin. Even your parenting can be of sin. Even the right techniques can arise out of faithlessness. You know a painter can use all the right brush strokes, can use the right paint, can have the right use of light in all the proportions.

But all that painter can do is make a copy. Because it's not just the brush strokes and the paint that make a painting beautiful. It's the artist. It's the artist that's moved out of affections. You know people are pointing this out about this AI revolution That when you remove the heart of the artist, you've lost something really significant.

And that's true for almost everything. Because there's always, all techniques all proceed out of something. All techniques are supported by something. All techniques are infused by something. And this is just one of the most obvious realities in nature.

There's a hidden source that sustains the visible thing. There's a root system for a tree. There's a spring that feeds a lake. There's a cloud that drops the rain. There's a headwaters of a river.

So The first commandment in raising kids is love and affection for God. Have you ever heard of heliotropism? Is that a familiar term? Heliotropism? Heliotropism is when a plant doesn't just receive sunlight, but that plant turns toward the sunlight.

You know, the sunflower is a classic example. The sunflower will turn toward the east in the morning and that sunflower will follow all the way to the west and then when night falls that sunflower will turn back toward the east and then it'll follow that same cycle. It's seeking the sun, it's seeking the heat and the nourishment of the photosynthesis process. And I think the apostle Paul, he described it in 2 Corinthians 3, 17. The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by the Spirit of the Lord Brothers and sisters, that's the heart of parenting. And I hope we really understand that. Your affection, your highest allegiance, your deepest delight, is the ultimate reference point for all of your parenting. And every family has a center of gravity. Every family operates out of a root system.

Every family operates out of a root system. Every family operates out of a certain spring. It's either a clear spring or it's a brackish spring. Every family is coming down from the headwaters of something. Okay, why is this important?

In order to secure the love of your children, you must love them. In order to secure their submission, you must be under submission. In order to bring up children in the training and the admonition of the Lord, you must be under the training and the admonition of the Lord as well. If you want to teach your children to control their emotions and you must do this from the earliest time, then your emotions must be under control. If you want to teach your children to govern their tongues, your tongue must have a governor.

If you want your children to govern their affections, then you must govern your affections. If you want your children to trust the Lord, you must trust the Lord in everything. And this is how Deuteronomy 6 is structured. It begins with love and then it proceeds to motivate a parent to teach their children when they sit in the house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down, and when they rise up. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and teach your children.

Solomon said, unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain. This is how the Lord builds the house is out of the love of Jesus Christ. I just want to close with some beautiful Psalms that I've been encountering over the last few days. Psalm 123 verse 1, Unto you I lift up my eyes, O you who dwell in the heavens. Behold as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he has mercy on us.

Psalm 141 verse 8, but my eyes are upon you, O God the Lord, in you I take refuge. 2 Chronicles 20 is a remarkable passage of scripture. Invaders were getting ready to overtake the land of Israel and the people said nor do we know what to do but our eyes are upon you One of my favorite verses in all of the Bible is in Psalm 27 verse 8 where David says, When you said, he's speaking to the Lord, Lord when you said seek my face, my heart said to you, your face, oh Lord, I will seek. Seek the Lord with all his strength. Seek his face forevermore.

This is the first commandment of parenting. To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. And as you hear all of these messages, you're gonna hear some great really helpful things. You're gonna hear many many more commandments of marriage. You're gonna hear many techniques of raising your children, not marriage.

But tie it all to that one thing. Does this flow out of the spring of love for God? It's the most important thing you'll ever do. Would you pray with me? Father, thank you so much for your word.

We marvel at its beauty. We marvel at its practicality and how much we need it. And so Lord, I pray you would pour your grace out upon all of us teach us your ways oh Lord amen