SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to be in Deuteronomy chapter 6 this morning.
SPEAKER_01: So if you wouldn't mind turning in your Bibles there, my name is Jeremy.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the pastor of Student and Family Ministries.
SPEAKER_01: We want to welcome you if you're a guest.
SPEAKER_01: It is so good to be with you worshiping together.
SPEAKER_01: We're in the middle of a little short sermon series on Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor Jason set us up for Deuteronomy 6 this morning, and then Webb's going to uh to close us out in Deuteronomy 8 next week.
SPEAKER_01: So really looking forward to that.
SPEAKER_01: As you're turning in your Bibles to Deuteronomy 6, I just want to ask you if you can remember what you had for breakfast this morning.
SPEAKER_01: That's fairly easy, right?
SPEAKER_01: What about this?
SPEAKER_01: Who was the first person that greeted you as you walked into the church this morning?
SPEAKER_01: It might be just as easy, or maybe you're trying to remember because you saw a number of people all at the same time.
SPEAKER_01: How about this?
SPEAKER_01: Let's go back to yesterday.
SPEAKER_01: What'd you have for lunch yesterday?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I can't remember.
SPEAKER_01: Uh honestly, that's pretty pathetic, but that I can't remember what I had for lunch.
SPEAKER_01: Kids, do you know remember what I had for lunch?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, what'd I have?
SPEAKER_01: Pizza Ranch.
SPEAKER_01: Who could forget Pizza Ranch?
SPEAKER_01: And all the goodness it does to you afterwards.
SPEAKER_01: What was the last thing someone said to you before you went to bed last night?
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember?
SPEAKER_01: Uh let's do this.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go back three days.
SPEAKER_01: Three days ago.
SPEAKER_01: What were you wearing?
SPEAKER_01: What were you what were you dressed in?
SPEAKER_01: Who did you talk to and what did you talk about?
SPEAKER_01: Let's go back two weeks.
SPEAKER_01: Two weeks from today.
SPEAKER_01: What was the first song that we sang in worship?
SPEAKER_01: There's going to be a test as you leave this morning.
SPEAKER_01: What was the biblical text that we we studied and that was preached on?
SPEAKER_01: And what was it about?
SPEAKER_01: If we keep going farther and farther and farther back, we we realize our memories get fuzzier and fuzzier and dimmer and dimmer.
SPEAKER_01: That's because we just as people have this knack for forgetting.
SPEAKER_01: For instance, I I have this, probably not rare, but it's a medical condition that causes me to forget everything my wife asks me to get at the grocery store as soon as I park and walk through the doors.
SPEAKER_01: Like before I leave, she's going through, she's sitting there, okay, look at me in the eyes, okay, focus.
SPEAKER_01: I need, and then she'll go off the list.
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times it's not even a long list.
SPEAKER_01: It's not like an overwhelming list, it's just like a few things, like three or four things, butter, ice cream, lettuce, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm sitting there, okay, okay, got it, got it.
SPEAKER_01: I get in the car, and Hugo's is only five minutes away, so it's not like, you know, I've had a long time for my mind to wander, but as soon as I park and walk through the doors, I fear just creeps my heart, and I'm like, why on earth am I here?
SPEAKER_01: So I'm calling or texting her, what did you want me to get?
SPEAKER_01: And she's so patient with me and all that.
SPEAKER_01: How good is your memory?
SPEAKER_01: Do you ever walk into a room and forget while you're there?
SPEAKER_01: We memorize things in schools for tests, but we soon forget them afterwards.
SPEAKER_01: We just have an amazing propensity to forget things.
SPEAKER_01: And with the amount of information that demands our attention on a regular basis, we are struggling to retain information and have an increasingly short attention span.
SPEAKER_01: This is according to the New York Times.
SPEAKER_01: So take it for what it's worth.
SPEAKER_01: But according to the New York Times, the average attention span for the notoriously ill-focused goldfish is nine seconds.
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: You learned something new this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Goldfish have an attention span of nine seconds.
SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
SPEAKER_01: That one's free.
SPEAKER_01: But according to a new study from Microsoft Corporation, people now generally lose concentration in eight seconds.
SPEAKER_01: Eight seconds.
SPEAKER_01: That's if you're doing the math there and drawing conclusions, you are you're correct to conclude that on average we have a shorter attention span than a goldfish.
SPEAKER_01: That's frightening.
SPEAKER_01: It highlights the effects of increasingly digitalized lifestyles on the brain.
SPEAKER_01: Researchers just looked at it from about the time when the mobile revolution began, about 2000, and the average attention span has dropped from 12 seconds now to about eight seconds.
SPEAKER_01: Our propensity as people to forget is not new.
SPEAKER_01: You might think, well, this is a result of technology and having so many screens and platforms demanding our attention, but forgetfulness is an ancient problem.
SPEAKER_01: It's not something that's new.
SPEAKER_01: Consider with me for a moment the people of Israel, God's chosen people.
SPEAKER_01: In Judges chapter 3, verse 7, it says, And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: They forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Samuel chapter 12, verse 8 through 9, Samuel's recounting the history of Israel to them.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, When Jacob went into Egypt, that's a reference to Jacob and his whole family, and the Egyptians oppressed them.
SPEAKER_01: Then your fathers cried out to the Lord, and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place, that this place in this text is the promised land.
SPEAKER_01: So God did all of that, but then he goes on, but they forgot the Lord their God, and he sold them into the hand of Sisera, commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab, and they fought against them.
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah chapter 23, verse 26 through 27, a little bit later on in Israel's history, Jeremiah the prophet says this on speaking as God's mouthpiece.
SPEAKER_01: How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart?
SPEAKER_01: He's addressing present-day false prophets, attempting to lead the people of God astray, who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another.
SPEAKER_01: Now you might come to a conclusion that that was a modern day issue and problem in that time, but he connects it to the past.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Even as their fathers forgot my name for Baal.
SPEAKER_01: Hosea chapter 2, verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: When God is bringing his chief indictment against the people of Israel, he says, This, I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals.
SPEAKER_01: That's a false God that the people of Israel chose to worship, when she burned offerings to them and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lovers and forgot me, declares the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Putting this into perspective of where we're at in Deuteronomy, it seems pretty abundantly clear as to why God is so incredibly repetitive with telling his people to remember, to do, repeat, obey.
SPEAKER_01: He says it over and over and over because his people have a knack for forgetting even what matters most.
SPEAKER_01: Last week, Pastor Jason wrapped up his message on uh Deuteronomy chapters uh four and five.
SPEAKER_01: The last point he made on remembering God's word was that God, remembering God's word requires attention, careful attention.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we're gonna pick up in Deuteronomy 6.
SPEAKER_01: Remembering God's word requires attention, especially as it relates to passing it down to the next generation.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where we're going to be this morning.
SPEAKER_01: That's gonna be the main thrust and focus of this morning's message.
SPEAKER_01: When a new generation begins to come to maturity, they don't just stumble upon the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_01: They don't just happen to come across it.
SPEAKER_01: It must be intentionally handed down from one generation to another.
SPEAKER_01: That's going to be our focus.
SPEAKER_01: Now, before we dive in, before we begin our journey here this morning, our feast in God's Word, I want to just provide a little caveat here this morning that a lot of what I'm going to say this morning has to do with families.
SPEAKER_01: It applies very easily to families.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I'm going to speak a lot to parents this morning.
SPEAKER_01: But I don't want you to get the impression that if you are not a person with children in your home, if you are a single person, unmarried, or maybe you just don't have kids, that somehow, some way this doesn't apply to you.
SPEAKER_01: I would argue that it absolutely applies to every single person in this room if you are part of this community of faith.
SPEAKER_01: If we look at the context in which Moses is given this address, he doesn't just call all the parents and families together for a little familial pep talk.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't just address the parents in the congregation.
SPEAKER_01: He gets everyone together.
SPEAKER_01: And my belief, my conviction is that Moses knows it doesn't just require good, faithful parents to transmit God's word to the next generation, although that's a key part of it.
SPEAKER_01: It requires the intentional participation of an entire community to pass God's words from one generation to the next.
SPEAKER_01: You're fooling yourself if you think you don't have a part in this.
SPEAKER_01: If I could just speak personally, I have benefited from both men and women, singles and married, who have invested personally in my own children.
SPEAKER_01: My children have grown in their love for God because of people who may or may not have children willing to say, I'm going to take on this task and I'm going to come alongside you and partner with you in this and make it my priority to teach your kids about God's word.
SPEAKER_01: So that not only is dad and mom teaching this at home, but now we have people in church building trust with our kids, reinforcing the exact same thing.
SPEAKER_01: It requires an entire community.
SPEAKER_01: I want to ask you and invite you, get on board with this.
SPEAKER_01: The next generation is not going to stumble upon it, and we can't just say, parents, it's your problem.
SPEAKER_01: All of us need to be together in this.
SPEAKER_01: This is a team sport.
SPEAKER_01: No one sits on the sidelines.
SPEAKER_01: There's no JV team in this church.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone is on varsity and everyone is in the game.
SPEAKER_01: So, with that said, I want us to take note of how Moses sets up the command of passing down God's words from one generation to the other.
SPEAKER_01: Typically, verses four through nine are the how-tos.
SPEAKER_01: We look at those in the in the uh Shema, um, and it gives us a lot of, here's how to go about doing it.
SPEAKER_01: But a lot of times we skip over a very important section in Deuteronomy 6 that is incredibly helpful for us understanding what it is that's being passed on to the next generation.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verses 1 through 3 with me.
SPEAKER_01: We see first that there is a blessing for the next generation.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rules that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son, and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you all the days of your life, and that your days may be long.
SPEAKER_01: Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord the God of your fathers has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey.
SPEAKER_01: Notice the command given to obey.
SPEAKER_01: It's given with the end in mind.
SPEAKER_01: He tells them to obey through the lens that there is a promised land on the other side of obedience.
SPEAKER_01: He says that you may do them.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to my words, follow my rules and statutes, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over to possess it.
SPEAKER_01: And then in verse 2, that you may fear the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_01: Those might not seem like blessings in and of themselves, but this is the blessing of keeping in God's covenant, of God's promises.
SPEAKER_01: He says, do them so that we will have a right relationship in the land that you're going to.
SPEAKER_01: But then look at verse 2, that your days may be long.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 3, that it may go well with you.
SPEAKER_01: Again in verse 3, that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey.
SPEAKER_01: There's an intricate connection between blessings of God and obedience to the words of God.
SPEAKER_01: Obeying God's words leads to God's blessing for God's covenant people in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: It was the heart of the covenant between God and his people.
SPEAKER_01: If you obey my words, obey my voice, do what I tell you to do, I will be your God, you will be my people.
SPEAKER_01: No nation on earth can stand against you.
SPEAKER_01: You will have more than enough to provide for your family, you will multiply greatly, and you will be a great and mighty people on the earth.
SPEAKER_01: That was the promise to God's old covenant people.
SPEAKER_01: We even see it again in verses 10 through 15.
SPEAKER_01: He says, When the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob to give you with great and good cities that you didn't build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant, and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
SPEAKER_01: The promise is there.
SPEAKER_01: And notice in verse 10 he says, And when the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_01: So it's not a matter of if God is going to fulfill his end of the deal, it's as if it's going to happen.
SPEAKER_01: This is a blessing that will take place.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a disputable matter here.
SPEAKER_01: He will fulfill it.
SPEAKER_01: And then also notice that God is going to provide things that don't happen by the work of his people.
SPEAKER_01: Again, with great and good cities, he's going to give them that they did not build.
SPEAKER_01: Houses full of all good things that they did not fill.
SPEAKER_01: Cisterns they didn't dig, vineyards they didn't plant.
SPEAKER_01: They're going to inherit a land where they will be blessed, multiplied, and prosper, and God is the one behind it all.
SPEAKER_01: They don't even need to lift a finger to begin to plant things or to build houses.
SPEAKER_01: But with blessing comes a warning.
SPEAKER_01: There's a warning here also.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 12 through 15 we see, take care lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 13 it is the Lord your God you shall fear, him you shall serve, and by his name you shall swear.
SPEAKER_01: You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you.
SPEAKER_01: For the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God, meaning he is desirous of his people, the people who bear his name.
SPEAKER_01: He is a jealous God.
SPEAKER_01: Lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you and he destroy you from the face of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: We have here the promise of both blessing and its opposite, curse, destruction.
SPEAKER_01: God isn't casual with regards to who or what his people worship.
SPEAKER_01: Forgetfulness of God will lead to idolatry and abandonment of the God who ultimately wants to bless his people.
SPEAKER_01: That's God's desire here.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, he wouldn't have given them the warning of forgetting.
SPEAKER_01: God's desire for his people is that they would flourish under his lordship.
SPEAKER_01: So what blessings do you and I have?
SPEAKER_01: What blessings has God promised you and I?
SPEAKER_01: He is He's not promised me any land.
SPEAKER_01: I can't just assume God's going to give me a house full of stuff, full of stuff I didn't fill it with.
SPEAKER_01: I believe that's called breaking and entering.
SPEAKER_01: These promises are for God's old covenant people, but God promises something far greater for his new covenant people.
SPEAKER_01: For his church.
SPEAKER_01: As God's new covenant people, we have access to blessings that transcend any kind of physical blessing, such as land or wealth, or length of days.
SPEAKER_01: It's far greater, far better than any of that.
SPEAKER_01: You and I, if we are in Christ, we have a whole different level of blessings that can't be touched.
SPEAKER_01: Because they are blessings that the apostle Paul says are in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_01: Take your finger, put it there, plant it in Deuteronomy 6, flip with me over to Ephesians chapter 1.
SPEAKER_01: This is going to be a mouthful, but follow with me if you will.
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians chapter 1, starting in verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_01: Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
SPEAKER_01: In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons through Christ Jesus, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved.
SPEAKER_01: In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
SPEAKER_01: Stay with me, verse eleven.
SPEAKER_01: In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
SPEAKER_01: In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance, until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.
SPEAKER_01: Are you following with everything that Paul just said?
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: If not, it's cool.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to summarize it, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Starting in verse 3, we have the assurance by Paul himself that Christ Himself has given us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_01: If you're one to write in your Bible, underline that word, every spiritual blessing.
SPEAKER_01: There's no exception to it.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing God is holding back.
SPEAKER_01: Every spiritual blessing has been given to us.
SPEAKER_01: What are these blessings?
SPEAKER_01: According to Ephesians 1, we have the blessing of having been chosen by God.
SPEAKER_01: That's verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: We have the blessing of holiness.
SPEAKER_01: That's also verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: The blessing of adoption, verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: The blessing of grace, receiving something you don't deserve.
SPEAKER_01: That's verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: We have the blessing of redemption, having been purchased by God.
SPEAKER_01: That's verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: The blessing of forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01: If there's one thing you and I need most, it is the forgiveness of our sins.
SPEAKER_01: That is a blessing given to us, both past, present, future sins, forgiven in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We have the blessing of knowing God's will, verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: No longer wandering around about life, wondering, what does God want for me?
SPEAKER_01: We can know God's will definitively, according to what Paul says.
SPEAKER_01: That's in verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: The blessing of reconciliation, being made right with God, being brought back into a right relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_01: That's verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: We have the blessing of an inheritance in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: That's verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: We have the blessing of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: That's verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: And then to top it all off, we have the blessing of the Holy Spirit in our lives who guarantees.
SPEAKER_01: The inheritance that we have in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: That's verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: And there's much more that we can dig in there.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see the blessings that we have in Christ?
SPEAKER_01: And connecting that to what?
SPEAKER_01: If we go back to Deuteronomy 6, connecting that to what we are passing down.
SPEAKER_01: We are not merely passing down arbitrary rules.
SPEAKER_01: We are not passing down mere religion.
SPEAKER_01: We are not trying to crank out good moral children.
SPEAKER_01: Inherent with passing down God's word to the next generation includes passing down the blessings that come along with it.
SPEAKER_01: The blessings you and I have in Christ are far greater than the people of Israel have in a promised land.
SPEAKER_01: We have a far greater promised land that cannot be touched.
SPEAKER_01: It is not threatened by other nations.
SPEAKER_01: It cannot be removed from you.
SPEAKER_01: It was purchased by Christ for you.
SPEAKER_01: No longer do you have to try and earn obedience.
SPEAKER_01: Christ was obedient for you, and he seals you now with the Holy Spirit, guaranteeing that it's yours.
SPEAKER_01: These are the blessings that we have to pass down to the next generation.
SPEAKER_01: We have also the opportunity to pass down curse.
SPEAKER_01: That's verse 12 through 15, forgetting God.
SPEAKER_01: And when we forget God and let our kids, let the next generation wander into idolatry, we are passing down not blessing, but rather judgment on our own children.
SPEAKER_01: Judgment on the next generation.
SPEAKER_01: My encouragement for you, church, here this morning in saying all this is simply this.
SPEAKER_01: Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 19, Moses summarizes everything he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Life and death are before you, blessing and curse.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, this morning, church, therefore, choose life.
SPEAKER_01: Choose blessing for our children.
SPEAKER_01: Choose blessing for the next generation.
SPEAKER_01: Choose the eternal life that Christ has secured for them.
SPEAKER_01: Let that be what we hand down to them.
SPEAKER_01: Not curse.
SPEAKER_01: Those are the stakes at hand.
SPEAKER_01: And with that being said, we want to pass down blessing to our children.
SPEAKER_01: Let's turn our attention as to how we go about doing that.
SPEAKER_01: How do we pass blessings down from one generation to another?
SPEAKER_01: How do we pass the blessings that Christ has secured for us down to our children?
SPEAKER_01: And we see the transmission to the next generation.
SPEAKER_01: That's verses four through nine back in Deuteronomy 6.
SPEAKER_01: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
SPEAKER_01: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.
SPEAKER_01: And these words that I command to you today shall be on your heart.
SPEAKER_01: You shall teach them diligently to your children, 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, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
SPEAKER_01: You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
SPEAKER_01: In Hebrew, it it's it's pronounced Shema.
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, this passage of Scripture is called the Shema, which just simply means to listen, to hear.
SPEAKER_01: This is the thesis statement of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: It is quoted by Jesus himself in Mark chapter 12 when he is questioned what is the greatest commandment in all the Bible?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus points to this text and quotes it verbatim, verse 4 and 5.
SPEAKER_01: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
SPEAKER_01: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
SPEAKER_01: It's easy to understand why that would be the greatest command in all of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: But it's also the starting point for families when it comes to passing down God's words to our children, to the next generation.
SPEAKER_01: Look again at it.
SPEAKER_01: It identifies, Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
SPEAKER_01: We are identifying ourselves with God, but not just identifying ourselves with Him.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 5 says, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.
SPEAKER_01: And not just loving God, but these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
SPEAKER_01: I believe the reason that Moses structures this passage in this way is that you cannot pass on what you yourself do not possess.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot give love of God to the next generation, to your children, if you yourself do not have a love for God.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot try and impress the words of God on your children's hearts if it's not first written on your own.
SPEAKER_01: You can't pass down what you don't possess.
SPEAKER_01: You're pouring from an empty cup.
SPEAKER_01: Just ask a really honest and painful question.
SPEAKER_01: Question of application that this text seems to beg.
SPEAKER_01: Is your love for God evident to your family or is it assumed?
SPEAKER_01: Are you just assuming people see your love for God?
SPEAKER_01: Or are you living it out visibly in front of your kids?
SPEAKER_01: Is your life characterized as one that is consumed with and driven by the Word of God, or is it consumed and driven by something else?
SPEAKER_01: Your children's values are going to be shaped by your values.
SPEAKER_01: And if you do not value God above all else, that is going to then be passed on to our children.
SPEAKER_01: The reality of God's love in your life will have a profound impact of the reality of God's love in your children's lives.
SPEAKER_01: It has to start with you, parents, mom and dad, I'm talking to you because what follows in verses six through nine is the application of verses four through five.
SPEAKER_01: You can't do verses six through nine teaching them in your house when you rise, when you say, all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01: You can't do that if it's not verses four and five first.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if that just grips you and you feel a little bit hopeless because your love of God is feeling weary.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe your life is not defined and categorized as one that is driven by the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: I have wonderful news for you this morning.
SPEAKER_01: News in the form of Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 26 through 27.
SPEAKER_01: The prophet Ezekiel speaking on God's behalf, prophesying of a day where God is going to make a new covenant with his people.
SPEAKER_01: And he says this, that in that day, I will give you a new heart.
SPEAKER_01: And a new spirit I will put within you.
SPEAKER_01: Notice who's doing the work here.
SPEAKER_01: It is not God's people who are getting the heart and putting it in themselves.
SPEAKER_01: It's not trying to obtain God's spirit and put it within themselves.
SPEAKER_01: God says, I will give you a new heart.
SPEAKER_01: I will give you a new spirit.
SPEAKER_01: I will put it in you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey all my rules.
SPEAKER_01: This prophecy given hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus Christ came, Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of this.
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus Christ took on your stony, rebellious heart, and he placed it upon his broad shoulders, and in exchange gave you a heart that is capable of obeying God, of loving God, a heart with God's own words written on it.
SPEAKER_01: If your love for God is lacking, the solution is not try harder.
SPEAKER_01: You can't really command and try to love God.
SPEAKER_01: It's something that needs to be done to you.
SPEAKER_01: And if that's where you're at, trust in the one who provides it.
SPEAKER_01: Trust in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, if you're feeling weary in your love for God, it's not a try harder, it's a trust in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Only Christ can give you the heart required to do verses six through nine to pass on God's love and God's words to the next generation.
SPEAKER_01: Only Christ can set you up for success in that way.
SPEAKER_01: And so you can't simply try harder and try and be more obedient.
SPEAKER_01: The solution here is to fall at the feet of Christ and just beg for Him, for His forgiveness, for His grace, and for His mercy.
SPEAKER_01: God says, I will do this for you.
SPEAKER_01: So then, if Christ can give us the heart we need to pass on God's words to the next generation, then what does it look like?
SPEAKER_01: Let's look again at verses six through nine.
SPEAKER_01: We need the heart first and foremost, but then it overflows into family life.
SPEAKER_01: Verses six through nine.
SPEAKER_01: These commands are these words that I command to you today shall be on your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, verse seven.
SPEAKER_01: You shall teach them diligently to your children, 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, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand.
SPEAKER_01: They shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
SPEAKER_01: You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
SPEAKER_01: What is described here is a home that puts the Word of God as its sole priority.
SPEAKER_01: The sole priority.
SPEAKER_01: It's so prioritized that when you uh when you walk, you talk about them.
SPEAKER_01: When you sit, you're talking about them.
SPEAKER_01: When you eat, you talk about them.
SPEAKER_01: They so define you in your house that they are they are as symbols on your hands.
SPEAKER_01: Everything you do is driven by the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: It's like frontlets on your eyes, it's it's the lens through which you see all of life.
SPEAKER_01: It's the it's written on your doorposts, it's the very defining feature of your home.
SPEAKER_01: If I could just have a quick word, parents.
SPEAKER_01: God's word given to your children is the biggest priority of your life.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't catch what I'm saying, let me say it this way.
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't care what their GPA is when they get to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't care what sports they do or don't play.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't care what college they go to, he doesn't even care if they go to college.
SPEAKER_01: The priority for God's people is God's words passed down.
SPEAKER_01: That frees us, friends.
SPEAKER_01: That relieves us of trying to get our kids to do everything I want because you are not the most important person in your house.
SPEAKER_01: You are not, your preferences are not the ultimate value of your house.
SPEAKER_01: The ultimate value of your home ought to be God's words.
SPEAKER_01: We we don't need what the world worships.
SPEAKER_01: We need worship of God.
SPEAKER_01: We get worship of God by teaching these diligently to our home to our kids.
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's a big aspect of that.
SPEAKER_01: Teaching diligently.
SPEAKER_01: It communicates intentionality in the home.
SPEAKER_01: These aren't things that are accidentally done.
SPEAKER_01: They are they are incredibly relational.
SPEAKER_01: It is habitual, it is constant, unceasing.
SPEAKER_01: It's a regular habit.
SPEAKER_01: It is part of the rhythm of what your family does.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't need to be formal instruction either.
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's more than one way that you learn.
SPEAKER_01: And there's more than one way your children learn.
SPEAKER_01: They do learn through formal instruction by you sitting down, opening up God's word, and teaching your children.
SPEAKER_01: They learn that way.
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes the first sermon that your children will hear and remember is the sermon of your life lived out.
SPEAKER_01: Teaching your children is not always, okay, kids, we're going to sit down and for three hours we're going to read through the book and you're going to enjoy it, okay?
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: Don't you yawn, little Jimmy, okay?
SPEAKER_01: You stay awake, stay with me, okay?
SPEAKER_01: That's not always what we do.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, sometimes it's it's taking advantage of moments.
SPEAKER_01: I have a confession for you.
SPEAKER_01: I as I'm as I'm preparing for this sermon, I had something happen to me, to me, that I was just convicted of.
SPEAKER_01: And it happens a lot.
SPEAKER_01: So winter came and just destroyed all the plant life that I had around my house, except for the grass.
SPEAKER_01: Grass is green, oddly enough.
SPEAKER_01: In Colorado, it all turns brown until April.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm out there cutting away all the gross-looking dead leaves that are on my on my on the plants that grow out.
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know what they're called because I'm not the gardening type.
SPEAKER_01: I just know it looks gross and I want to get it get rid of it.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I'm I'm out there, I'm pruning all this dead plant life.
SPEAKER_01: And actually, before I go out, my my wife asks me if I could take my three-year-old with me.
SPEAKER_01: Say, can Micah go out with you to do this?
SPEAKER_01: And when I when I do yard work, like that that's a little bit of me time.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: I get my headphones, I put it in, I'll listen to music or podcasts.
SPEAKER_01: I just get to kind of relax and just focus on mowing the lawn, or in this case, pruning the plants, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_01: And simply suggesting that Micah would come out.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's it's in the front yard.
SPEAKER_01: There could be cars, it'd be, and there's lots of things I could have came up with, but really what it is was a defense of my own selfishness.
SPEAKER_01: I wanted me time.
SPEAKER_01: And as I went out after, you know, trying to brush it off, I went outside by myself, and as I started, I've I felt incredibly convicted because this passage of scripture has completely wrecked me as a parent.
SPEAKER_01: I went back in and told him, come on outside with buddy, you're gonna come help daddy.
SPEAKER_01: And he came out, and you know, I'm he's he's doing the best he can.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't perfect.
SPEAKER_01: It took longer than what it should have.
SPEAKER_01: I should have been done within like a half hour.
SPEAKER_01: We were out there for like an hour and a half.
SPEAKER_01: As as I'm doing this with him, I'm able to have conversation with him.
SPEAKER_01: Hey buddy.
SPEAKER_01: See this planet?
SPEAKER_01: Is that alive or dead?
SPEAKER_01: It's dead.
SPEAKER_01: He's a three-year-old, he knows the difference.
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_01: And is that how God made the world?
SPEAKER_01: Are things supposed to die?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: And I get an opportunity to engage in a gospel conversation with my child by simply seizing the moment of today.
SPEAKER_01: Seizing the opportunity before me.
SPEAKER_01: That's the heart of this.
SPEAKER_01: It's not always sitting down for formal instruction.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's leading by example.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's taking the opportunities that God is presenting for you.
SPEAKER_01: I encourage you, parents, you will never, ever regret, ever regret taking every opportunity that you can to communicate God's words to your children.
SPEAKER_01: Never.
SPEAKER_01: It sets the priority of our home.
SPEAKER_01: This is the home here in Deuteronomy 6.
SPEAKER_01: Where the focus is on knowing God's words.
SPEAKER_01: It is a home focused on knowing God.
SPEAKER_01: Let's wrap it up.
SPEAKER_01: We have the blessings of God's words for the next generation.
SPEAKER_01: We're passing on spiritual blessings that can't be touched by anything in this world.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we're giving to our children.
SPEAKER_01: We have the how.
SPEAKER_01: It starts with us.
SPEAKER_01: Starts with us.
SPEAKER_01: Change has to start with us.
SPEAKER_01: You can't give what you can't, what you don't possess.
SPEAKER_01: It requires intentionality.
SPEAKER_01: Capitalizing on those moments that God provides for us.
SPEAKER_01: But Moses here in verse, if you look at verse 20, Moses predicts something happening.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 20 predicts kids taking notice of what mom and dad are doing.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 20 says, when your son asks asks you in time to come, what is the meaning of the testimonies and statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?
SPEAKER_01: So Moses says, your kids are going, like it's not even if your kids notice.
SPEAKER_01: Your kids will notice if you worship and follow God.
SPEAKER_01: It's going to happen.
SPEAKER_01: And they're going to begin asking questions.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we do this?
SPEAKER_01: Why do we follow Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: Why do we make a point of obeying Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: I want you to look at what Moses points to when that question comes up.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 21.
SPEAKER_01: Then you shall say to your son, We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord showed signs and wonders great and grievous against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household before our eyes, and he brought us out from there that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our forefathers.
SPEAKER_01: Moses tells the people of God to point your children to God's work in your life as the reason for why you are so committed to following Jesus and teaching them likewise.
SPEAKER_01: Their identity was that they were slaves.
SPEAKER_01: And yet God, with a mighty hand, brought the most powerful nation in that time to its knees and let loose, let free this slave, uh this group of slaves, and brought them into a land that they couldn't get on their own.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he pointed to.
SPEAKER_01: Moms and dads, when your kids ask questions about why you're a Christian and why we go to church and why we read the Bible and why you choose to follow and obey Christ, you have a similar history.
SPEAKER_01: You were a slave.
SPEAKER_01: You were a slave to your sin.
SPEAKER_01: You were a slave to your pride and selfishness.
SPEAKER_01: But God, God with a mighty hand, he didn't bring a nation to its knees.
SPEAKER_01: He brought his son.
SPEAKER_01: And his son took your sin upon himself when he died on that cross so that you and I might be set free.
SPEAKER_01: You and I have a similar testimony.
SPEAKER_01: And that is what we point to.
SPEAKER_01: The meaning of obedience is not simply cranking out good kids, as I've already said.
SPEAKER_01: It's not developing religious kids.
SPEAKER_01: It's not developing kids who vote right.
SPEAKER_01: It's to get kids who have experienced the same kind of freedom.
SPEAKER_01: You point them to what Christ has done for you.
SPEAKER_01: And then one day they will be able to point to theirs and say what Christ has done to them.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to say that I I know there are families here that struggle with things like this and maybe messages like this, because maybe you have adult children who have wandered from the faith.
SPEAKER_01: And this isn't a guarantee of anything.
SPEAKER_01: This isn't a promise that your children will follow suit.
SPEAKER_01: This is a call to faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: If you could just be faithful in trusting God in doing what God has called you to do as a family and called us to do as a church when it comes to transmission of God's words to the next generation, the results are out of our hands.
SPEAKER_01: It's completely on God's, but we can stand in front of God with all integrity and said, I've done what you've called me to do, I've done what you've asked me to do, I've relied on your grace and your mercy, and all of the rest is on you.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the people have, and that's what you and I have.
SPEAKER_01: And that's all that God wants us to do.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: God, we thank you so much for your words.
SPEAKER_01: They are not words to be hoarded up by one generation, to be kept away from others.
SPEAKER_01: It is to be intentionally passed on to the next generation.
SPEAKER_01: And more than just passing down words, we are also passing down blessings.
SPEAKER_01: Blessings of eternal life, blessings of salvation, blessings of the Holy Spirit, things that are far greater than anything this world could ever offer.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, you've given us instruction as to how we are to pass these on, and I pray, Lord, that you would call every parent here this morning to trust in you, to cry out for that heart of love for you.
SPEAKER_01: That Christ would give them a new heart.
SPEAKER_01: With your words written on it, with obedience written on it.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, in it all, I pray that we point to everything your Son Jesus Christ has done on our behalf.
SPEAKER_01: The meaning of our obedience is the gospel of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We pray this in his name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.