I will lead my family in church life

Pastor Tom absent. Medical appointments.

Intro. This year I turned 40… (thank you for all the BD wishes)

Life expectancy in the USA is 80.

Which means I’m half way

I’ve been pondering these last few days

What is one thing I can leave behind that is worth pursuing today?

Here’s why this question is so important: life on earth is short compared to eternity.

Show rope!

To answer the question

What is one thing I can leave behind that is worth pursuing today?

My love and devotion for Jesus is the greatest gift I can pass on to my family.

Our passage today reminds and instructs of this wonderful reality

In Deuteronomy 6 Moses is preparing a new generation who is about to enter the Promised Land. The Word Deuteronomy means “second law.” It’s not a literal second law but more like a review of the law. As if he is saying, “let’s go over the Lord’s instructions a second time.”

The first three verses could be summarized like this: “If you want life to go well with you and your family you are going to do things God’s way.”

You see, God’s desire is not only for you and I to experience life and have it abundantly (John 10:10), but also for the next generation to also experience life and have it abundantly (Dt 6:2). What a wonderful legacy: one generation loves and serves God and then the next generation loves and serves God...

My love and devotion for Jesus is the greatest gift I can pass on to my family.

I want to share three things about the importance of leaving behind a spiritual legacy.

1. You must first possess a personal love and devotion for God before you can pass it on to your family.

Here’s how Moses puts it:

Dt 6:4-5 “4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

Loving God with all that we are and with all that we have is the most worthy goal we can ever pursue in life.

The most loving thing I can do for others is to love God with all of my heart and with all of my soul and with all my might. The most loving thing I can do for my family is to first love God and out of that love I can then love them deeply.

Mk 12:29-31 “29 Jesus answered, “The most important [commandment] is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.””

This is what life is all about about - to love God and to love people. Life is all about having healthy relationships (shalom) first with God and then with the people around you.

This is where the gospel comes into place.

Just a few verses later in Deut 6:20-21 (NIV), In the future, when your son asks you, “What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the Lord our God has commanded you?” tell him: “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

One day your child is going to ask you, mom, dad, why is following and serving God so foundational for our lives...

Son, we were slaves, but God rescued us. (This is the story of the gospel!)

Son, we love and we serve God out of joyful gratitude to his goodness.

The NT tells the same story.

Ephesians 2:1 “1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins”

It doesn’t get any hopeless than that.

Ephesians 2:4-5 “4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—”

Ephesians 4,5, 6 “In light of what Christ has done for you, live a life worthy of the gospel.”

Or in the words of the Apostle John in 1 John 4:19 “19 We love because he first loved us.”

You must first possess a personal love and devotion for God before you can pass it on to your family.

You cannot give that which you do not have. If you don’t have a personal relationship with Christ I want to simply remind you, in the words of what we sang earlier,

“If you need freedom or saving, He’s a prison-shaking Savior. If you got chains, He’s a chain breaker.”

The second thing I want to share with you is that having a personal relationship with Christ was never meant to be a private matter.

2. Our love and devotion for God is meant to be passed onto the next generation

In 2 Timothy 1:5 Paul celebrates Timothy’s spiritual legacy. First, it was his grandma Lois. Then, it was her mom Eunice. Now it’s Timothy who continues to carry on with the gift of love and devotion of God. Paul simply calls it a “sincere faith that now dwells in Timothy.”

Dt 6:6 “6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.”

See that again? The Word of God is meant to have an effect in us and through us. Our children are watching us. They learn from both our words and actions. (coke story)

Dt 6:7 “7 You shall teach them diligently to your children...

This generation, the Joshua generation who entered the Promised Land, we are told the following in Judges 2:7 “7 And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel.”

Yes!

Judges 2:10-12 “10 And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. 11 And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. 12 And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger.”

Oh no! What happened? One commentator puts it this way,

Judges for You (Another Generation)

Did the first generation fail to reach out, or did the second generation just harden their hearts? The answer is usually both. Mistakes made by a Christian generation are often magnified in the next, NOMINAL, one. Commitment is replaced by complacency and then by compromise.

It’s not hard to go from commitment to complacency

MW defines complacency as “self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies”

The National Safety Council (safety training in the workplace)

Are you at risk for complacency?

Complacency affects every workplace and employee to different degrees. It often shows up as a feeling of security that leads to a lack of awareness of your surroundings. Though you might think you are immune, it can be as simple as letting your guard down, losing focus or not looking for hazards as often as you should. Depending on your role, this can create serious risks for yourself and others in your workplace. While no one plans to become complacent, we all have to be on the lookout for it, and being an engaged worker can help.

Moses is giving his own version of complacency training. Watch out guys!

Dt 6:10-12 “10 “And 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 did not build, 11 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, 12 then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

Dt 6:7 “7 You shall teach [the Word of God] diligently to your children...

What a wonderful calling God has placed in our lives. Often times we feel inadequate for the task, yet research tells us over and over that Parents are the #1 influence in their children's lives

We can’t outsource our children’s discipleship to someone else. We are meant to pass our love and devotion for God onto the next generation

3. Passing on our love and devotion for God to the next generation takes time

Let me read to you the rest of our passage,

Dt 6:7-9 “7 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. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

Some people can feel very inadequate when they hear that God has called us to teach God’s Word to our children:

Perhaps you think one must spend hours of studying in order to teach my 5 year old about the doctrine of the hypostatic union (Jesus’ two natures)

Maybe you think that having a Masters of Divinity in Biblical studies is the key.

And yet we read that teaching God’s Word is supposed to take place

When you are at home

When you are on the road

When you are going to bed

When you are getting up

Passing on my faith on to the next generation take place in the context of the routines of daily life. We take those mundane moments and use them to “teach them God’s Word diligently” (ESV)

Impress God’s Word on your children (NIV)

Repeat them again and again to your children

The Hebrew word literally means, “to sharpen.” My uncle would sharpen his machete using a stone going back and forth. The idea is using constant repetition throughout the day with our families. When I read these words I come to the realization that discipling my children is a life-long process not a one time event.

Look for opportunities. Use every opportunity

But in order to look for opportunities and use every opportunity we need time. The problem is that we are alway in a hurry.

In his book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, John Mark Comer quotes Dallas Willard

“Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

Here’s why. What is our ultimate purpose in life? To love God and to love others.

Hurry and love are incompatible (JMC)

Hurry makes us irritable and short with people.

Luke 10:41-42 “ “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, 42 but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.””

“Hurry kills relationships. Love takes time; hurry doesn’t have it.” (JMC)

This is why the Apostle Paul warns us in Ephesians 5:15-16 “15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”

Making the most of every opportunity (NIV)

Make the most of every chance you get (MSG)

Pick up rope again

You and I don’t have a lot of time to live on this earth. Even if you get to live 104 years it’s still not much compared to eternity.

My love and devotion for Jesus is the greatest gift I can pass on to my family.

I would encourage you to look at your schedule and ask God to help you in using your time wisely.

Conclusion:

Confess: my love and devotion for God is lukewarm at times

Declare: As for me and my house we will serve the Lord