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We are going to talk about family this morning. Family is a big deal. Would you agree? Family is a big deal. For better or for worse, family shapes our lives more than any other thing in our life. If I were to be honest with you, there are a lot of things that I do that are directly connected and tied to how I was raised. Anyone agree with that? Anybody see that? Sometimes we don't want to acknowledge that. Sometimes we like to deny the fact that it's had an impact on us. Sometimes we adopt behaviors, patterns, rhythms, values. We adopt those from our family. Sometimes, because of our experiences, we actually reject some of the things that we experienced growing up, right? So there's a negative connotation. It's like, okay, I don't want to do what my family did, so I'm going to be different. But either way, that's shaping us. It's shaping who we are. For some of you, you walk in today and you've been deeply wounded in your past through family. Maybe it was a parent, maybe it was a sibling, maybe it was an extended family member, but somebody wounded you. Listen, we're all wounded people. All of us walking around on this planet have got scars from the battles that we've experienced, from the hardships, the relational strife and difficulties. And some of you have been shaped by that because family gives you this position that you're in, this context that you're in, where people have access to you in a way that they know you, that like no one else knows you because they see you behind closed doors. You know what I'm talking about? Not the who you are at your workplace, not the who you are in your neighborhood at the neighborhood party, not the who you are on the golf course, but the who you are behind closed doors when you are who you really are. When the hair comes down, when you know the no makeup is on, uh, when you're just hanging out in your boxers, men. When you're in that position where you're just vulnerable and you're just you're real, that's who you really are. Which then means the people that are closest to us can actually wound us and hurt us the most, right? They can have they can do some cause some damage. But listen, here's the thing: whether you've had good experiences with family or you've had bad experiences with family, whether you've adopted a lot of your family's values and those things are still shaping you, or whether you're reacting to things that you didn't appreciate or didn't uh enjoy about your upbringing, you are shaped by family. You are. We all are. Family is a big deal. Not only is it a big deal in terms of our experience, but let's be honest, uh, if you are a Christian, if you're a Christ follower, and if you've read the Bible, family is a big deal. Now, what's interesting when I say that is because if you look at the Bible, you can't find a book called the Book of Family. Like, the Bible's got 66 different books, and nowhere in there is a book that's specifically dedicated just to family. Now that's an interesting thought considering how important it is, because if you go to the very first book of the Bible, Genesis, God created family. He established it, he instituted it, he made a man named Adam, and then he makes a woman named Eve. He puts them together, they are married, and they have this family. Okay? There's this covenant relationship that's there, and they have two sons. And what's crazy about the Bible's picture of family, if you've looked at the Bible, if you've read the Bible much, is that most of the families in the Bible are pretty jacked up. Okay, let's just get honest this morning. We try to glorify it, we try to say, hey, look, you know, like uh we're Christians, we're we're better than that, we're superior. Well, guess what? Our line of people who followed God isn't so pretty. And chances are uh we a lot of times are in the same boat. We just hide it. Because the truth is, is when you look at the Bible, uh let's go to the very first parents, Adam and Eve. The first homicide, the first murder, okay, happens in the first family. One brother kills another brother, Cain kills Abel. That's the first family. Uh then you can just kind of keep going through the book of Genesis and you can see dysfunction after dysfunction after dysfunction after dysfunction. Does that make you feel better? Everybody just kind of take a big deep breath of, okay. I'm not the only one jacked up. I'm the only one that messed up here, okay? Because the Bible is full of pictures of families that were screwed up. There's also some beautiful stories of redemption in those families. And there's a beautiful reality that God uses those families in spite of the issues that are there, in spite of the challenges and the difficulties and the hardships that are there in those families. Now, I say all that this morning because we want to spend the next four weeks looking at family. Every year we take some time out of our teaching schedule, and we typically will teach a family series, three to four weeks, maybe longer if needed, but this time it's gonna be about four weeks long, and we're gonna look at what we call the uncommon family. Now, what I don't mean by uncommon family is that uh we think that we can become superheroes, right? So this is the I don't know what your idea of the ideal family is, but uh, you know, in America it's like, you know, hey, if you get a husband and a wife and two kids, and you've got this ideal family. I don't know what your ideal family is. In fact, if you came in this morning and we gave every one of you a tablet, and you wrote down on this tablet we said, hey, write 12 words that describe your ideal family, we would probably get a lot of varying definitions of what you see as ideal. Would you agree with that? Uh, and some of that again is shaped by our experience. But we do know that God, because he created family, he instituted it, he initiated family, he has a plan and he has a purpose for it. And I can tell you right now that the plan and the purpose that he has for family is uncommon to what we typically see in the world. It's uncommon. But here's the cool thing. Not only is his wisdom and his insight and his perspective and his truth uncommon, it's actually, it's actually, it results in uncommon blessings, uncommon benefits, uncommon fulfillment in family. We get to experience some great things when we apply what God has told us to do. So, as we think this morning, we're gonna get into the Bible. We're gonna take a look in Deuteronomy chapter 6. And so if you have your Bible, I'm asking you to go ahead and open that up. And I want us to spend some time unpacking a section, it's probably one of the most famous passages in the Old Testament in terms of family and uh kind of how that was shaped uh in the Israelite culture, which is our God's people in the Old Testament, people he chose, starting with the man Abraham. Uh again, I don't know how familiar you are with the history of the Bible. There's this man named Abraham, and God picks this man and he says, I'm going to bless you, and I'm gonna bless all of your descendants. Your descendants are gonna be the numbers, outnumber the stars. Okay, that's crazy. Uh there was a little bit of a problem in that plan because Abraham and his wife Sarah didn't have any children, so it's kind of hard to fulfill a promise of having descendants uh that outnumber the stars if you don't have children. Uh and so God does a miraculous thing and he provides them uh a child named Isaac, and Isaac, of course, becomes this father of a nation as well, and just expands out from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob, and the line continues, uh, and this is where the Jewish people all draw their lineage from, is all the way back to this man named Abraham, that God chose to say, Hey, I'm gonna put my glory on display through you. And we're gonna talk more about that in a minute. But before we get to what is simply uncommon, let me just again remind us that what is common is that all of us have difficulties and challenges on the home front, correct? All of us have issues. If you're married, marriage is hard. If you have kids, parenting is difficult. If you're a kid, if you're a child in the room and you have parents, being a child and being a kid is difficult, right? Because parents aren't perfect. Uh they don't do everything right. So being in family, being in a family is a common experience of that, is to be that is that it's difficult. And here's what I want you to know. As we begin to look at God's word, starting here in Deuteronomy 6, you're gonna feel a tension start to rise in you. And I know this because I've been in church a long time. Uh I've got the scars to prove it. And I can tell you that as being in church, growing up in church, being around church, um, when we start to teach about the things of God, there's this feeling of either one, I am failing, like big time failing, and so I just want to crawl under a rock and just want to get away from this because I don't want to have to hear how bad I am. Or the other tendency is to think, hey, I'm doing really good at this, and you become pretty arrogant, pretty self-righteous, like I got this. Okay? So let me just go ahead and tell you today again, um, there is a beautiful thing going on in the gospel that we we cling to. So as we come to the family conversation, you need to know that you are more messed up than you even begin to realize. I am more messed up than I even understand. And at the same time, we are more loved and more forgiven than we can even begin to imagine. And we have to hold those things in tension because the ideal family is not the real family. The our ideal of what it should look like isn't what we actually look like. There's a gap between those things, and we need to understand, I need to understand today, that as I fill that gap, that is a great opportunity to put my hope and my trust in God. Because we're gonna spend our entire lives trying to grow into who God wants us to be. We're not ever gonna arrive fully. So if you think you've arrived today, this probably isn't a place for you. Okay? No, I'm just seriously, so many people they they they can sometimes get into this mindset of, well, yeah, we've got this. We figured this out, we don't need this anymore. Um, but I want you to know that all of us are growing, all of us need to take steps forward, all of us need to make progress, and God has given us the power to make that progress and to grow through our poor performance. You know, it's interesting because when Jesus comes on the scene in the New Testament and he speaks to people, a lot of times we want to talk about Jesus as though he was just a person of grace. Like he just was a person of mercy. I want you to know that Jesus wasn't just a person of grace and mercy, meaning that he was just forgiving and loving and he just let people do whatever they want. Jesus actually was a person of grace and truth. And we need both if we're gonna grow spiritually. So there's a tension that Jesus brought onto the scene when he came where he called people to account. He called people to step up, he called people to stop sinning, he called people to live differently, he called people to not keep walking in disobedience and just to act like it's no big deal, to quit rebelling. But he also did what? He accepted people who weren't measuring up. He accepted people and he embraced people and he loved people right where they are. And that's the kind of church I want to be a part of, guys. I want to be a part of a church that says, hey, look, we're all growing, we need to step up because we're not meeting God's standard, but you know what? We also can show each other grace when we fail. And so I feel like I need to say that to you again because as families this morning, there's gonna f there's gonna be a tension that you're gonna start to feel like, hey, we're not doing that, or we're not measuring up. But that's a good thing. Because when we acknowledge that we're not measuring up, we can find God's grace. There's humility that brings us to God's grace and through to a dependency upon God. So let's jump back. Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4. We're just gonna read from verse 4 to verse 15. So hang with me. It's on the screen if you need it, and there's some Bibles under the chairs if you happen to want to read it for yourself, which I encourage you to do. Listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand, and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. And when the Lord your God brings you into the land, he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, there's the lineage I was talking about earlier, that he would give you a land with large and beautiful cities that you did not build, houses full of every good thing that you did not fill them with, wells dug that you did not dig, and van and vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant, and when you eat and are satisfied, be careful not to forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery. Fear Yahweh, your God, worship him, and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the people around you. For the Lord your God who is among you is a jealous God. I'm going to stop there. So, let me give you a little bit of context for this, okay, and why this passage is so important. This is in the book of Deuteronomy, which is one of the five books that are the first five books in the Bible that are all books of law. They give us a history, they give us like a picture of what was going on in the early days of humankind and after God created the world. But what you'll notice is that if you've read the read the book of Deuteronomy, I just finished reading it in my personal uh reading in the mornings, and it's kind of an interesting uh deal because some people see it as a really dry book. Anybody ever tried to read the book of Deuteronomy before? Numbers, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, these Old Testament books, they're really dry in some ways. But what you notice is that God is giving them some specific instructions, some commands on how to live. Now, here's why he's doing this for this particular people. Because God chose for himself a people out of all the rebellious people on the planet. He chooses for himself a people that he wants to demonstrate his goodness and his glory through. He wants to demonstrate that through his people. And so here he's got this distinct group of people, and he calls them to live different than the nations around them. He wants them to live a different way of life, a different way of thinking, a different way of different rhythms and different routines. He gives them different festivals. And one of the first things he says here in this passage that's really interesting is he says, Hero Israel, the Lord our God is. With me? Okay, let's try that again. Hero Israel, the Lord our God is. Okay, good, good, good. Just making sure you guys are still with me. So, one God. So you guys are like, well, that's really big and profound. There's one God. Actually, the culture, the world in which they lived was very pluralistic. They served many gods. There were many, many idols, and many, many of these false gods that were worshipped. Uh, even this group of people in Israel, they had been in Egypt in the book of Exodus. We hear that story and how they were in Egypt, and they had all these many gods that they worshiped, ultimately bowing down to literal statues and different uh representations of these gods. And so when God says to Israel, look, all these gods, all these gods around you, these little g gods around you, you just need to know there's only one God. There's only one. Now, I think this applies really heavily here in Austin, Texas. Uh, because we live in a very pluralistic society. We live in a pluristic world where people say, well, no, there's many ways, many ways to God, many ways we can go. I just want you to know the Bible says there's only one God. There's only one big G God. Now, maybe that's offensive to you again as you explore, but I just want you to know I can't keep you from believing whatever you want to believe, but I can also tell you that I've got to tell you what the Bible says. And it says there's one God. One God. And so this was profound for them, it was a big deal. And he said, I want you to worship him. I want you to worship this one God. I want you to give your life and give your energy and your effort and your resources to him. Because we're going to talk today about uncommon priorities. And I think this passage really helps us get a handle on what our uncommon priorities should be. Because from this point, this group of people in Deuteronomy, as I said earlier, the line, they became the Israelite people, and ultimately Jesus is from their line. Okay? So you track with through the Old Testament. I'm giving you a really warped speed version. You start working through the Old Testament, and you're going to go from these people in Deuteronomy being told to worship one God and to love him with all their hearts, and you're going to get a group of people after people, a generation, generation, generation, so you're going to get to the person of Jesus. Jesus is going to come on the scene. He's going to save people. He's going to be the Messiah. And every person who puts their trust in Jesus, meaning, I think many of you in this room who put your trust in Jesus to save you, are now part of God's family. And now you have the role. We haven't replaced Israel, but we now are God's children, like Israel was God's children. And we now have the role of what? Doing what they were supposed to do, which was to demonstrate to the world that God is good, that God is awesome, that God is gracious. Are you still tracking with me? So now we get the particular job, the awesome responsibility of getting to point people to God with our lives and with our families. We get to participate in that. That's a priority for us. So I say that because as we track through this this morning, we are constantly distracted and bombarded and kind of sidetracked by other little g gods that are trying to rob us of the exact same thing that was happening here in Deuteronomy chapter 6, which is to worship God alone. To see that there's only one God. There's only one. So as we think about priorities this morning, I want to just kind of unpack a little bit of why prior is a big deal, because misplaced priorities are the reason why we as Christians don't look any different than those who are unchristian in the world today. Misplaced priorities are the reason why we Christians aren't doing what the people of Israel were commanded to do, and now what we get the opportunity to do, which is to point people to God with an uncommon way of life, an uncommon value system, an uncommon way of functioning in our everyday life. Are you with me? Now, you may be thinking, I don't really get that, but I want to make sure that this, the rest of this message is going to help you understand why this is a big deal and why I believe that misplaced priorities are what causes us to look exactly the same. Because you know that as Christians, as Christ followers, as Jesus followers, and again, I don't assume that everybody in this room is a Christ follower, Jesus follower, our lives should look different. They should be distinct, they should be uncommon. And yet many times they they aren't because we've adopted the same priorities, we've absorbed the same value system that all the people who live around us have that are not Christian. And this is the same problem that these people faced in the book of Deuteronomy, God's people from early on. So why is why are um priorities such a big deal? Why are priorities such a big deal? Priorities determine who we become. Priorities determine who we become. What you prioritize in your life will shape how you live. So, for example, um, when I was a kid, I loved football. Anybody like football? I love football. And because I like football so much, I made it my goal to get good at it. And so I spent time, money, effort, blood, sweat, tears so that I could be a good football player. I would I would push my body and I would get my points, my myself to the place where I was like lightheaded and throwing up. But because I wanted to get good, I would push hard, I'd go lift weights, and I would do all these things and try to be really good at football. And my priority to be good at football was shaping my life. Are you with me? It was shaping how I did life. Um, my son, uh, my oldest son, he loves Skylanders. Anybody know who Skylanders is? Okay, if you don't have little kids, you might not know what Skylanders is, but if you have little kids, you know what Skylanders is. And it's this game, and it's on the the uh the Xbox, and and these people are brilliant because you buy the game, and then to actually succeed at the game, you have to go back to the store over and over and over to buy these little traps. And I hate I hate those things, okay? Um, because we keep buying these traps, and now I've got a whole house full of traps. But he's like, I can't go to the next level unless I buy this trap. But it is shaping my son's life because he loves and prioritizes Skylanders. Okay? And so he talks about it in the morning when he wakes up, he's like, When are we playing Skylanders today? You know? Yeah, I'm gonna play Skylanders. And so that's that's a silly illustration, but all of us have something in our life, a priority in our life, that is shaping our life. It is determining who we are becoming. And this is why we need to pay attention to what we are prioritizing. Because what we prioritize, we tend to idolize. What we prioritize, we tend to idolize. Uh, what I mean by idolize, again, going back to Deuteronomy chapter 6, all these other gods, all these other uh uh, you know, these different idols that they were worshiping. And in our lives, we may not have a little statue that we go bow down to in the morning. Maybe you do. I don't know, your faith background, but I don't have any statues in my house, but I have idols. I may not have a little wooden statue or a little metal or stone thing that I go down and I pray to every day, but I have idols in my life. And you have idols in your life because idols are the things that we give ourselves to. It's the things that we look to to satisfy us, it's the things that we look to to find our security. And significance, like we talked about with the money series over the last three weeks. Money tends to be one of our big idols. It tends to be one of the biggest idols because affluence, wealth, all those things that can tend to really rob us of worship of God because we want stuff, okay? And so in my life, there's idols. And when we prioritize things, we will start to fixate on it and we'll start to drift. Now, how many of you guys have ever been driving down the road and you saw something on the side of the road and you started noticing your car drifting in that direction? Anybody ever been there? Um, so when we lived out in uh in West Texas as kids, uh you know, or in then into middle school, high school, and then even into uh college, I lived kind of in an area where there were a lot of deer, and I like to deer hunt. And I like to be out in the woods, and uh particularly like to bow hunt. But one of the things that was crazy is when we drive around out there, there would always be deer out in the fields. And so my wife has to get onto me because when I'm driving out there, it's like I see a deer, and I'm like, deer, you know, and I start drifting over there, and it's like you hit those little bumps on the side of the road. But look, what you what you start to really lock in on, what you start to fixate on, what you start to focus on, will steer you. And it's the same way with idols in our life, things that you are have in your life that you will start to fixate on, you'll start to focus on, and it will pull you in. It will suck you in, it will pull you that direction. Because that's what priorities, which become idols, do. So maybe you're asking the question well, what are the idols or what are the priorities in my life? What are the priorities in my life? Let me just give you a simple question that I think helps me. Okay? The things that are prioritized in my life are the things that I'm willing to sacrifice for. The things that I sacrifice for. So, um, again, what are the things that I sacrifice time, money, relationships, and energy for? Those are my priorities. I don't know what all of yours are. I think there's probably some overlap in the room. Agreed? There's probably some things we all have, some common priorities, but there's probably some things that are distinctive to you. And there's things that you sacrifice for. There's things that you give up something so that you can pursue that something that you really want. Now, that being the case, all of the priorities in our lives will begin to shape us as we submit ourselves to those things, as we surrender our agendas to those things, as we start to give to those things, as we start to invest time and energy and effort into those things. They'll start to steer us. And I want to give you three things that I see in families today that we prioritize. Okay? And hear me say this. My goal is not to make you feel guilty as I say these. These are just things that I see families prioritizing. The first thing that we tend to see families prioritizing is in the area of experience. Anybody, if you know this about families, families like to have experiences. Maybe it's because of an experience they had when they were a kid growing up, and now they want their kids to participate in that experience. Or maybe they personally even want to have that experience. Or maybe it's an experience they didn't get to have. Maybe they didn't have the money to have an experience, and now they want to make sure their kids get this experience. Uh, I'm not going to ask you to raise your hands, but how many of you gone to Disney? Okay? One of our cultural things is that people go, oh, you haven't lived until you've gone to Disney. Your family hasn't been a real family and experienced what you're supposed to experience until you go to Disney. All right, so that's one experience maybe you have. Uh for me growing up, we went to the lake all the time. And I love being on the lake. And I want my kids to go to the lake, but I don't have a boat. So we just try to like go here and there when we can and we enjoy it. But I want my kids to have that experience, and I want them to have that opportunity to enjoy things like that. We always went on a family vacation every summer growing up, and so for us, it's a high priority on our list to make sure that we have some time away as a family every year. Now, is it wrong to want experiences? It's not a trick question. Is it wrong to want experiences? No, it's not at all. Experiences are good. But here's the thing: if you prioritize experiences over the things that are really going to last in the long term, so you start sacrificing money, time, and energy for the things that are most important, it can become a danger, can't it? It can become a danger. One of the other things that we prioritize as families a lot of times is accomplishment. Accomplishment. Now, just go to the Little League Baseball field, right? Or go to the Pee-Wee football field, or go to the band room or the choir room or the dance recital hall, or go somewhere and watch families invest immense amounts of time, energy, and resources to do what? To help their kids succeed. To accomplish these things. Again, sometimes that's because they accomplished, they were good at it, and so they want their kids to be good at it. Sometimes it's because they didn't get to participate in that particular activity. And so they want their kid to get to do that and accomplish something that they didn't. So they live vicariously through their kids, which is a very dangerous thing, parents. Okay? Very dangerous. Don't live vicariously through your kids. But accomplishment's a big priority. So people will give up all kinds of stuff to help their kids succeed. Not only on the extracurricular field, curricular field, but also in education. People want their kids to succeed educationally. They want to make sure that they get a higher education. They want to exceed what they did. And so they make this a priority, right? They sacrifice. And so many parents, I mean, they're investing a ton of energy into their kids being really successful in the classroom. So they pay immense amounts of money for private school, which is great if you've got the money. Is it wrong to want your kid to succeed or excel? Is it wrong for a family to want to experience accomplishments? No. But is it dangerous if we take something that's good and then we begin to sacrifice things that God has for us, the best things, for something like that? Absolutely, it can get out of whack. The priority can get out of line. The third thing that I see with families is affluence. Affluence. A lot of families will say, well, we didn't have a lot growing up, so I want to make sure my kids have a lot. And so some of these experiences and some of these accomplishments all kind of feed into this idea of affluence. So we want to live at a certain comfort level. Even for young couples, listen, young couples in the room, whether you're married or going to get married soon, we have a major, major problem. Because couples today, they want to start where their parents ended. Are you tracking? Like they want to start at the same level of lifestyle as their parents ended a lot of times. So you've got to be very, very careful because this will suck you in, right? This will really suck you in. And you will prioritize, you will sacrifice, you'll take a job you don't really want to just make money so that you can keep up a certain level of lifestyle. And so you'll miss out on God's best because you are so sucked into money and affluence and being comfortable and having certain things. And here's the danger: the more you have, the harder it is to say no to those stuff and yes to God. Because the more it grows, the harder it is to want to be willing to sacrifice that stuff and say, God, okay, I'll I want to follow you. I want to prioritize your agenda over my stuff. Again, this isn't a recap of our money series, but it's a danger zone, okay? I'm speaking from experience here. So from the time you're very young, we actually, I won't call them out, but we have a young couple in our group, uh, our life group, and Harley mentioned the life groups earlier. Um just something that we do here as a church. We have small groups that meet during the week, and we sit down and we get honest, and we have honest and open conversations about life and about um you know how to apply what we hear here because it's really hard, and we need people to help us and encourage us and challenge us. And within the context of that, we have a young couple that's there, and they've just been expressing some of the desire to not get locked into a way of life that would keep them from God's best. And I thought, how wise is that? How wise is it to, on the front end, as a young couple, say, hey, God, we don't want to get locked into this trajectory that's gonna keep us from hearing from you and doing what's best. So many families do that. They build their lives around, okay, it's about this climbing the ladder to get to this certain level of affluence. And as we've said before, at the end of the day, everything that's here is temporary, it's not gonna last. So if these are some of the priorities in your life, in our lives, and maybe there's some different things that fit under these categories, what are these pointing to? Well, they're pointing to all of us want to succeed at life. We all want to succeed at life. We all want to be happy with life. We all want to be fulfilled in life. Would you agree? I I don't I don't make it my goal in the morning when I wake up to say, I want to be unhappy today. I hope this day really is a bad day. I hope that I don't accomplish anything, experience anything, or have enough money. Right? That's not my goal. Because we all want to succeed at life. But here's the thing: I want you to know this morning that God, catch this, if you haven't heard anything else, catch this. God wants you to succeed at life too. God wants you to be a successful human being. The problem is, is we define success differently than God does. We define success differently than God does. So for us, maybe again, our success is tied to this affluence or to this experience or to this accomplishment issue. And for God, he wants all of those things of experience, affluence, and accomplishment to point to something greater. Something grander, something transcendent, something that's gonna outlast us, something that's gonna leave a legacy, something that's going to impact people for eternity. God has that for us. So, what is our uncommon priority? Let's go back to the passage. The uncommon priority that we as Christians, again, if you're not a Christian, you're not a Christ follower, you're not obligated to this. So you're off the hook. So you can like sigh relief. Sweet. I don't have to do this. Okay? But if you're a Christ follower, if you're a Jesus follower and you say you're you're Christian, here's what your highest priority ought to be. And this is not just the words in Deuteronomy, it's Jesus' words in the New Testament. He says this listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Here is our priority, to know and to obey God. To know and to obey God. You're all like, oh man, that's terrible. What's the really like that's that sounds like a lot of fun. To know and obey God, what? Again, because we don't have the same view of who God is. We've lost sight of him. I want you to know this morning that the God that we serve, the God that we get to live for, and to live under his rule and reign, is an awesome God. He is not a God who hates your guts. He is not a God who just created a bunch of rules to make your lives miserable. He is not a God who is trying to keep you from experiencing a full life. Are you tracking? He is not a God who sits up there thinking, I just hope I can make these people's lives absolutely boring, dull, and miserable. That's not God. God wants you to have a full life. He is for you, not against you. As we said in the money series, he is a giver, not a taker. That's our God. Do you believe that this morning? If you believe that, say it to the person next to you. Say, God is for me. Okay? Sweet. Some of you guys did not say that like you mean it. I saw you. But here's the thing: because God is for us, he knows that there are things that we will pursue instead of him that will rob us of life instead of give life to us. And so our families, our families, guys, listen, these are the environment, the context that we get to refocus our hearts again and again and again on the ultimate priority of knowing God, this awesome God, and obeying Him. I want my kids, listen, I want my kids to grow up in a home where they do not live for God out of guilt and fear, but out of the fact that they know that God is the best thing they could ever get. That He is most attractive. Some parents parent their children trying to keep their kids from doing things because they don't want them to experience hurt. And I get that. Like, there needs to be like, hey, there's consequences if you do this, right? Some parents, they they parent their kids in a bubble trying to protect them from the world. Which, by the way, is not biblical, okay? And so, just so you know, he says we got to be in the world, but not of the world. But here's the thing: what really drives Christian kids, Christian parents, the way we are uncommon, is because our kids are so attractive to the awesomeness of God that they want to live for Him. And so, this is an indictment on me. If my kids don't see God as attractive and beautiful and awesome, catch this. If they don't see that, a lot of that is because my picture of what I've painted to them is a picture that God's not awesome. Because they're looking at me as their dad saying, Hey, you you say God's awesome, but why is it that you seem to think like, you know, God's not that big a deal, he's not that exciting, he's not that great. So, do you feel tension in that moment? I feel tension as a dad. So the priorities that we as, again, men in the room, men in the room, if you are a dad, if you are a husband, if you are going to be a husband one day, if you are a grandfather, it is our job, according to Scripture, to set the thermostat on how we view and follow God, how we know and obey Him. And here's the cool thing. When I even said the word obey, some of you guys in the room are like, oh man, I knew he was gonna pull that card. You gotta obey God. I'm convinced, catch this, I am convinced that when we see God for who he is, we will want to obey him. When we understand how awesome he is, great he is, glorious, there is no sacrifice that he would ask of us that's too great. There is nothing that he would ask us to do that is better than him. I mean, there that we in our lives, guys, we get to follow God. We get to prioritize, we get to know him, we get to obey him. Another way I'd say this is that our job is to lovingly obey a loving God. We get to lovingly obey a loving God, not just do it out of duty, but because he loved us first. And this is gonna be a battle. And notice in the passage, he says, you need to write this on the doorpost of your homes. You need to talk about it when you're on the road, when you lie down, when you're at the dinner table. Why? Why would he say that explicitly? Because this is not normal. It's gonna drift right out of your mind. It's gonna be so hard to keep this in focus that this is our ultimate goal. But when we begin to know God and obey God, then our experiences, our affluence, our accomplishments, all of that finds its place in the right priority list. And God uses those things for his glory. So do I think that God can use a Christian Major League Baseball player? Absolutely. Can God use a Christian neurologist? Absolutely. Can God use a Christian businessman who's an investor who makes millions? Absolutely he can. But here's the thing: what God wants more than their life, than their them to be successful in this life is for them to be successful in the life to come. He wants them to see the bigger picture. We get to know and obey God, to prioritize knowing him, obeying him. This means that, guys, we as families, as if you're a Christian family, as a family, you're spending time in God's word together. You're reading the Bible together. Not you don't have to just sit down and read like a whole book together, a whole chapter together, but read parts of God's word at our breakfast table at the shock household. If you came and joined us for breakfast, what you would see is our family most days, not all days, because sometimes it's total chaos. Um, and most days we sit down and we eat breakfast and we just talk about God and we we talk about who he is and what he's done, and we talk about how awesome he is, and we don't have this all figured out. We don't, we're not perfect, but I'm telling you because we want to focus on our biggest agenda item, which is to know God, to obey God. Prioritize him. And there's some words I don't feel like that, but we do it because we know God is good and God leads us. Here's the thing: why would we prioritize these things? Because he's the only one who can give us true success. Pole. Who wants to succeed at life? Everybody, right? Dumb question. If you want to succeed, surrender to God. If you want to ultimately succeed, surrender to God. Because he's the only one who can bring real success. I said on the front end, guys. That we know what we prioritize, by what we were willing to sacrifice for. But catch this. If that's the case, then what is a priority to God? If we know what we prioritize by what we sacrifice ourselves for, and sacrifice our stuff to, then what is important to God? I'll tell you what's important to God. God knew way back in Deuteronomy chapter 6 when he gave this passage and he said, I'm only one God, that the people were gonna worship other gods in spite of them knowing that rule. God knew that when he said to love him with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength, that people were gonna love other things besides him. They weren't gonna love him the way that he called them love. And you know what? He sent a redeemer, a redeemer, a rescuer named Jesus. And what God has prioritized is he has prioritized you and I. Because he gave the ultimate sacrifice for us. Hear that, guys, hear that this morning. God sacrificed for you. He sacrificed for me. If there is nothing else that motivates us this morning, it should be the fact that God has shown us that we are a priority to him because he pursued us in our mess. When we were giving him the bird and we were walking away in rebellion, and when we were saying, God, I don't want you, he says, I love you still, and he pursued us and he sacrificed himself for us. That's our God. That's what this whole scripture talks about. This word, this Bible is a story of redemption of people who wouldn't prioritize him, families that wouldn't prioritize him, and a God who still prioritized them. Still love them. That's an awesome thought this morning. Let's pray.