Grace, mercy and peace to you through God our Father, and Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Deuteronomy 11:18 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ¹⁹ Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ²⁰ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, ²¹ so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.

Back to school shopping is the beloved ritual of childhood. You need new clothes, new shoes, a new backpack – new everything. You need tissues, folders, notebooks, markers, scissors, and number 2 pencils. And you always need crayons. In my day, as a kid, you didn’t just want the regular old box with 12 or 24 crayons. You wanted to go back to school with the 64 box of crayons, with the built in sharpener on the back.

Today, a 64 pack of crayons with a built in sharpener doesn’t excite kids like it used to. Now kids are going back to school with an i-pod, palm pilot, and cell phone that has to have a built in camera.

Cell phones, calculators, and crayons are all nice to have. A lot of students going to public schools are going to have these items when they go back to school in a few days. So what separates Wisconsin Lutheran School from all these other schools? There are two items, and they are pretty much inseparable. Our WLS students will be starting school this Thursday with their Bible in their hands and their Savior in their hearts.

In our sermon text, the children of Israel are about to finally enter the Promised Land of Canaan. God wanted the parents to tell their children everything he had said and done for them in the past. That is why he has Moses tell the people: "Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ¹⁹ Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up."

Sadly, some of the Jewish people took God literally and made little boxes with Bible verses written in them and tied them to their hands and their foreheads. That is not what God wanted. What God wants is for parents who know his words to be in constant contact with those words. He wants you parents to think about his Word, meditate upon it and receive its warnings and comforts. God’s Word needs to be an everyday part of your lives. You also need to be sharing God’s Word with your children in everyday situations.

God’s instruction isn’t just head knowledge where you know a few Bible stories and can quote a few passages. God’s instructions are to be heart knowledge where you help your children learn to let God direct and guide their every step – in their leisure time on the playground, in their vacationing time at Disney World, in their sleeping time, in their rising time, and in their learning time at school.

Wisconsin Lutheran School is here to help you parents guide your children in God’s Word. It is God’s Word that separates WLS from all the public schools in America. This past school year, Donna Busch walked her son Wesley into his Kindergarten class at Culbertson Elementary, outside of Philadelphia. She came to do what every parent did during "Me Week," read her child’s favorite book in class. However, the book her child chose caused more attention than expected. She was going to read four passages from the Bible, her child’s favorite book. When the teacher saw it was the Bible, she called the principal who told Mrs. Busch that it was against the law to read a Bible in a public school.

Strangely enough, we don’t have that problem at WLS. We promote God’s Word. God’s Word is taught in our Christ Light curriculum. God’s Word is proudly proclaimed in the catechisms and hymnals the children bring with them to school. God’s Word is the focus of our chapel devotions. God’s Word is displayed on the walls of our hallways and displayed in the lives of our teachers, parents, and students. God’s Word is the solid foundation upon which this school is founded. Everything else is shifting sand.

There are countless children being raised today who have never learned about God, never sat in a church, who never saw a Bible, much less read one. If you want to know what their basis for morality is going to be, it certainly is not going to be God’s Word. If you wonder why the majority of children today admit to cheating on tests, lying to their parents, putting false information on job applications, stealing from employers, and act as though there is no longer a sixth commandment that forbids indiscriminate sex, then remember that it could be that no one ever taught them. They cannot remember God and his Word if they were never taught it.

Does that mean that our children who have attended WLS and been taught God’s Word from little on are going to be perfect little angels? Sadly, no. But God’s Word will hopefully be the foundation of their lives. The Holy Spirit will work through that Word that has been fixed on their hearts and minds. He will bring to mind that Word that has been taught them by their Christian parents and teachers. The Holy Spirit will use that Word to bring lost and lonely souls back to the love of Christ.

God’s Word is more than dry history. It is more than boring doctrine. It is so much more than a few flannel graph kid’s stories. This book contains the Word of Life! Jesus said to his disciples: "These words I have spoken to you are spirit, and they are life." (John 6:63) Life in this world that leads to life in the next. Paul wrote to Timothy that the Holy Scriptures are "able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." (2 Timothy 3:15) That is our greatest role as parents – to see our children in heaven. Paul continues: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17) While on this earth, as Christian parents and teachers, we will use God’s Word to teach, rebuke, correct, train, and equip these children. These are God’s precious little lambs, they are his blood-bought children and he wants them to act and live that way.

If you are sending your children to WLS, you know that education isn’t cheap. It’s around $1000 a child. That’s really expensive when compared to free tuition at public schools. It is really cheap when considering that it really costs around $4500 to educate each child at WLS. That means that Epiphany and First Evan are subsidizing your child’s Christian education to the tune of about $3500 per child. But that’s how important God’s Word is to the members of these congregations, to you parents, and to our children.

We are sending our children back to school with their Bibles in hand.

We are also sending our children back to school with their Savior in their hearts. Jesus is welcome in our school. We have been blessed with a lot of public schools teachers as members of Epiphany. When we are promoting WLS, we are not putting down the education in our public school system. Instead, we are promoting in our classrooms, what you teachers are not allowed to promote – Jesus Christ.

In June, in Las Vegas, Foothill High School valedictorian, Brittany McComb’s speech at her graduation ceremony was cut short by school officials who didn’t like that she mentioned Jesus Christ. Before McComb could get to the part in her speech that mentioned Christ – her microphone went dead. Brittany McComb later said, "I went through four years of school at Foothill and they taught me logic and they taught me freedom of speech. God's the biggest part of my life. Just like other valedictorians thank their parents, I wanted to thank my Lord and Savior."

You may be able to receive a fine education at public schools. Although I would stack the education at this school to almost any other school. In standardized testing given to all Wisconsin 8^th graders, WLS ranked in the 88^th percentile. That means that our WLS 8^th graders had higher grades than 88 percent of all schools in this state. But on top of the education, we have Jesus. He is the one difference in everything we do.

Moses told the Israelites: "Write [God’s Word] on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, ²¹ so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth." Have you ever counted the crosses or pictures of Jesus or references to him in our WLS classrooms? Do it sometime. In every classroom there is a cross, a picture of Jesus, and references to God’s Word. Every one. Like Moses told the Israelites, we want our children to know when they enter and leave our classrooms, that their Savior is going with them. These visual reminders help our kids remember that God is not some abstract thought, but he is a real and personal God.

Jesus is pictured with children on his lap, saying, "Let the little children come to me, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them." Jesus is pictured as smiling. He isn’t some ogre who wants to punish misbehaving children. He is their God, their Brother, and their Friend. The cross reminds the children that they were sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with Christ’s cross at their baptism. Their Savior will sustain them through his Word, later with his holy Supper, and comfort them in death. Our children are taught to live as God’s children. Most importantly, they are taught that they deserve hell, but Christ has given them heaven.

Hell may be an uncomfortable subject to talk about. But hell is waiting for each of us. Satan has made a hell for you and your children. It is a hell that is very easy to find, with a wide and comfortable road leading straight to it. It is far, far easier for us to go with the flow, to stroll unthinking down that brought pleasant avenue, far easier than to search through the rough, hidden turnoff that leads to heaven. We must fight against the lure of the easy road. It is a fight, my friends, a fight to the death.

It is a fight that our Savior won for us. The bloody cross and the empty tomb prove that Jesus was victorious. Our fight to the death with end in eternal life. Now heaven is waiting. But it isn’t easy to get there. It is a long, difficult path through the darkness and evil of this world. That is why Wisconsin Lutheran School is here. Our teachers along with Mrs. Krohn, our new First Grade teacher are here, and this school exists to help you help your children follow the path that Jesus trod – the path to heaven. Jesus our Savior is there waiting for us.

A group of tourists were traveling through Europe visiting historical sites. They were impressed that so many small villages were the birthplaces of great artists, poets, composers, and political leaders. While the group was strolling through a particularly picturesque village, one of the tourists approached a man who was sitting in front of a building and asked, "Excuse me, but … were any great men or women born in this village?" The old man thought for a moment and replied, "No. Only great babies!"

Everyone starts off as a baby – with the opportunity to grow into greatness. This is true not only in the world, but in the kingdom of God. When we become Christians, we are "born again" as "babies in Christ." We have to grow.

That is why WLS is so important. Our babies do not stay babies forever. They need to grow, not just physically, but also spiritually. Your babies will go back to school with their crayons, notebooks, and backpacks. At WLS, though, they will have two more invaluable items – their Bible in hand and Savior in their heart. Your babies are growing up to be great men and women of faith. That faith will take your babies to be with their Savior in heaven. Amen.