Sermon Cloud

Built to Outlast: Timeless Habits for Every Family
Deuteronomy 6:1-25

Yesterday the youth group families did a bike ride out on the Lakeshore, what a perfect day for it. If you haven’t joined us for a families of teens event, come on out this Wednesday, we’re all coming out for the 4th of July giveaway.

But yesterday, I was talking with some of the parents about today’s parenting message, and one of the parents reminded me that research has shown that we really only remember 20% of what we hear. So I’ve decided to make today’s message five times longer to compensate, I hope that helps.

Actually, he assured me that it wouldn’t, people are just very forgetful. You may not have been aware that our senior pastor is incredibly forgetful.

ILLUS: Dad/sister’s wedding

ILLUS: tithe check, schedule without a planner in hand: the lesson, know your limits (not doing her wedding)

Like Homer Simpson, everytime I put something new in my brain, something else has to go.

Forgetfulness has always been a big concern to God, and a big concern to the old testament prophets, who urge us to never forget God and what he’s done for us. This morning we’ll be looking at Deuteronomy, which is the final word from Moses, the pioneering leader of the Israelite nation, and 9 times in Deuteronomy Moses tells the people to take great care not to forget the Lord their God. “When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers… be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt the land of slavery.

And its interesting because the people he is telling aren’t likely to forget their history.

For 40 years the desert wanderers had watched God at work. Chapters 1-5, Moses recounts all that has happened: “Has anything so great as this ever happened , or has anything like it ever been heard of? Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived. Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him their is no other. Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other.” (4:32-34, 39).

They’ve seen God take them through countless dangers, out of Egypt with signs & wonder, through the Red Sea, into a barren desert. They’ve watched Moses go up to the mountain and meet with God. They’ve followed God by day in a cloud, by night in a pillar of fire. They’ve seen the miraculous and they’ve seen God’s amazing faithfulness and forgiveness when they’ve turned their backs on him.

Moses real concern wasn’t that his hearers themselves would forget: who could forget? His concern was that as a nation of families they would forget. His concern was that as the generations passed the stories would be forgotten, the truth would be lost.

You see, Moses had the heart of a founding Father. And deep in the heart of every parent is the hope that their kids will one day come to value what they value. And the fear that they will never understand. If you’re a parent, you know what I’m talking about, how will I teach my kids to value what’s really important? What if they don’t get it.

ILLUS: Lauren and I are new parents, talking about Jack & Evelyn.
We’ve had these amazing experiences, planting a church, seeing the sick get well, seeing our friends changed by the power of Christ, experiencing God’s amazing presence in worship, going to other side of the world on missions trips – how can we raise our kids to know God this same way? What if they don’t have the same experiences?

Let’s pick up with Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 6

1 These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3 Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, promised you.

Moses is about to answer the questions that all parents ask:
How do we pass on a rich, vibrant faith to our kids and grandkids?
How do we set our kids up for a long, truly enjoyable life?
How do we ensure that all goes well with our family?

Something most of us want:
POLL: did anyone here start going to church more regularly when their children were born?

Here’s Moses’ answer for parents like us:
4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. [a] 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.

This passage is called the Shema by Jews and it’s the most important passage in the Torah. Its so important that thousands of years later another Jewish teacher, Jesus, quoted it and called it the greatest commandment.

And it’s a really interesting command because it doesn’t start with a command at all, it begins with a claim: Hear this, O Israel, “the Lord our God, the Lord is one! And scholars are split on what that means, because the word can either be translated one or alone, and we could just as well say, Hear Israel: Our God is Lord, He is Lord alone! Most scholars will tell you that this is what Moses was saying two things at once, Our God is God alone, and he’s One. And because this One God is the only God, alone, Moses follows this claim with a commandment.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Scholars have debated what that means as well, Moses seems to be saying, love God with everything: the deepest parts of your person, your heart, your soul or your very life’s essence, and your strength, which doesn’t just include your physical strength, but all the strength of your resources as well. Whatever capacity you have, love God.

If you want your children and their children after them to go on following God, Moses is saying…
I. Love God without Rivals

Notice that he didn’t say, serve God with all your heart, respect God with all your soul, revere him, acknowledge him, honor him, but the command is to LOVE God without rivals – with everything in you.

The kind of love that bubbles over in passionate worship, the kind of love that keeps you talking about God’s presence in your life: at the dinner table and when the neighbors are over, the kind of love that keeps you fascinated with reading the stories, the kind of love that makes you determined to please God, whatever the cost. The kind of love that sends you into the city or to the ends of the earth to serve the poor.

ILLUS: growing up in a fundamentalist church

Ask yourself today, parent or not, how much do I love God? If you’re just going through the motions, today’s a great day to get honest.
If this is totally foreign to you, and you’d say, “I just don’t feel anything when we worship, or I’ve just lost the passion for reading my Bible, I’ve lost my excitement for what God is doing in my life; today’s a great day to start the journey back.

Here’s a couple suggestions:
Pick up a book by someone that really loves God: Piper, Desiring God
Simplify your life a little, maybe get on a fast from something that’s filling you up: television, eating out, shopping, a hobby, give yourself some space to hunger for God.

What would that have to do with parenting? I think there are two reasons Moses brought it up
2 Reasons:
1) Children value what their parents value, children love what     their parents love: empirical evidence, toy stores: for the parent who loves cars: hummers, BMW’s, for the dad who loves his lawn: lawn mowers, for the mom who loves to shop with her daughter: American Girl

Loving God, like loving anything, is far different from respecting, serving, honoring: many of us are doing
You might respect your boss, honor your employer, serve the company, but I’ll bet you your kids aren’t asking for a toy doll that looks like your supervisor?! Dad, can I get a Mr. Lumbergh action figure? Your boss is so cool! I want to be just like Mr. Burns when I grow up. Our kids love what we love, not what we serve.

How many of your kids actually want a Jesus action figure?

Second reason
2) We become more like what we love: Loving God keeps our priorities straight, it keeps us focused on loving others, forgiveness, humility and grace, its makes us better parents as we pursue Godliness. And our kids see that.

ILLUS: Dad asking forgiveness after a fight with mom: I need Jesus, too.

Love God without rivals:
Later in the passage, Moses takes some of God’s biggest rivals:

10 “When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, 11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, 12 be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”

ILLUS: In this country, as much as the Promised Land, God has a lot of rivals. Unicef study on child well-being in rich countries found America on the bottom in categories like health and safety, educational well-being, family & peer relationships, behaviors and risks: despite our high standard of living financial (or maybe because of it), our kids are not doing so well.

Study concludes luxury, convenience and the pursuit of wealth get in the way of raising healthy kids. We love our convenience more than our kids, in essence.

If you want to pass on a real faith to your kids, set your course on loving God without rivals. Get serious about eliminating the alternatives in your life

But Moses gets more specific, let’s go on:
6 “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

This practice of tying the scriptures as symbols still survives in Jewish culture. It’s a tradition that’s passed on to every boy at 13 just before his bar mitzvah.

Moses is saying that its really not enough to occasionally read God’s commands, Moses says live in such a way that God’s word is so valuable to you that your heart cannot contain it. Love God’s ways so much that his words bubble up from your heart and begin to dominate your mind and your thinking. So much so that you impress God’s words on your children, talking about them all the time, discussing them and reminding each other of them: in the morning, in the evening. Even when you’re walking down the road: “look, son, there’s Jacob’s well, have I told you the story about what God did for Jacob.” Tie them to your hands if you have to, whatever you do, don’t forget

Moses knew that our children would need constant reminders, and so he insisted that we
II. Build sacred family traditions (that saturate your life with God)

Plaster them around your home, talk about them daily, build routines/traditions

In 21st century America, you’re probably going to need to get a little more creative than tying a Bible to your head.

Sharp parents look for ways to create Christian family traditions, to create daily reminders and seasonal reminders of God. They make opportunities to debrief life with their kids and to pose questions that point to God. They look for teachable moments to reinforce a God-centered worldview.

I took stock of some of the best tips I’ve heard from other parents and parenting books: (I’ll go through them quickly for the parents taking notes)
Make the most of holidays
Serve the poor at Christmas, read the story together, celebrate some Jewish traditions
Assign age appropriate practice of the spiritual disciplines
Bible study tools, doing chores with worship music on the iPod, memorize scripture together
Debrief after discipline
For younger kids, discipline is a time to establish that God is an authority, and your acting on his behalf, for older kids, discipline can be the time to talk about real consequences and our real need for a savior
Sieze the bedtime opportunities
Kids are most willing to talk and share their hearts, make the most of that
Do The Dinnertable
Tell them about your day from a Christian perspective, debrief, read them something from your devotional time
Use everyday events
Everyday Talk: page 15


Now Moses was pretty insightful, he knew that if you started hanging scriptures on your head, and tying them around your wrists, your kids were gonna start asking questions.

20 “In the future, when your children ask you, "What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?" (why all the rules!!!) 21 tell them: "We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22 Before our eyes the LORD sent signs and wonders—great and terrible—on Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. 23 But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land that he promised on oath to our ancestors. 24 The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today.

You see, Moses was trying to correct the age-old parenting shortcut, “because I said so.” You know that one?

“Son, you’ve got to get to bed, its late. But why, daddy, because I said so. But daddy, why do I have to go to bed when its still light out, “because I said so.” Why is it still light out, “because I said so.”

Now what works great at 4, just doesn’t cut it at 16 when he wants to know why you want him to keep the rules. And it really doesn’t cut it when a teenager says, why does God have all these rules? “Because he said so.” If we want to pass on a real faith to our kids, Moses knew we’d have to start answering some questions, and so he urges us to…
III. Teach them meaning, not just the morals.

It’s just not enough to teach kids morality.

Morality doesn’t keep kids in the faith when they start to question God, when they ask, “why should I trust God?” If your kids start asking those kind of questions, they need to hear the stories, the stories of how God brought you out of Egypt, how God did signs and wonders in your life with a mighty hand, how God has kept his promises to you.

Kids need to hear YOUR story, and they need to hear the big story.

But notice a second thing, “when your children ask you, what is the meaning of these rules,” Moses says, “the Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees, SO THAT we might always prosper and be kept alive. God’s rules aren’t simply “because he said so,” they’re filled with wisdom, goodness, life, and hope. God’s laws are not arbitrary rules, they’re not merely his stingy preferences.

God’s ways lead to life. Your children need to know that.

Your children need to know that when God says sex belongs in marriage it wasn’t just because he’s stingy. They need to know that when God says don’t covet something that belongs to your neighbor, that it was because covetousness ruins the soul. They need to know that when God says don’t gossip and slander your enemies, but instead pray for them, it wasn’t because he’s a stickler.

God’s ways really lead to life. His law is a treasure.
That’s why King David can say in the Psalms, “I love your law.” His ways are really good. Do you believe that is true?

Check yourself this morning and ask yourself, do I really think God’s ways are smart? Do I really think that I’d be better off living life God’s way at work, in my love life? Would I really be better off if I gave generously to the church? Would I really be better off if I forgave offences quickly and prayed for my enemies, or am I just doing it because God said so?  Would I really be better off being married to one woman/one man? Would I really be better off if I put God’s priorities first in my career?

Raising the next generation starts with us. It starts with the decision to Love God with all our heart & soul & strength. There really aren’t any shortcuts.