When You Sit at Home and Walk Along the Road

Where I grew up, my dad had a workbench in the basement. He kept his tools on a pegboard above the workbench. Hanging inside their outlines were a big hammer and little hammer. I used the little one. It was the right size for me.

One day I reached for the little hammer and found the hook empty. Just the outline of the little hammer was on the pegboard. So, I asked, “Dad, where is the little hammer?”

“The Bible says, ‘Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none’ (Luke 3:11). That applies to hammers too.”

I never heard who got my favorite hammer. I knew better than to ask. My dad would have quoted from the gospel of Matthew:

When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Matthew 6:3 (NIV)

I don’t know where the hammer went . . . but I haven’t forgotten the conversation. Under the bare lightbulb of his workbench in the basement, my dad showed me how to obey God’s instructions. It’s where faith gets real.

That’s God’s point in Deuteronomy. Don’t just talk about obeying God’s law in a special place once a week. Make it an every-day, normal thing.

In the book of Deuteronomy, the people are prepping to cross the Jordan and enter the Promised Land. Moses has already scoped out the good land from the top of Mt Pisgah. But before they go, Moses summoned all Israel and reviews God’s instructions for holy living as God’s covenant people.

Moses addresses people rescued from a life of slavery in Egypt, rescued from life far from God. Before God intervened, they lived in Egypt without hope and without God in the world. God rescued them from slavery and made a covenant with them: “I will be your God and you will be my people.”

The challenge of living as God’s people – the challenge of having God live in the middle of their camp – is that God is holy. God is holy and righteous and powerfully good. Anyone tainted by disobedience or sin is liable to get hurt. From the dawn of time, God warned humankind that sin will lead to death.

That’s why the first 5 books of the Bible include commands, decrees, and laws. In Hebrew, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are called “the Torah,” meaning “instruction.” The Torah teaches people how to live as God’s people: holy and dearly loved. You’ll find, as you read through the rest of the OT, that God’s people in every generation struggled to live up to God’s standard.

Maybe you find God’s high standard for righteousness and holiness a challenge too. I admit that I struggle to live up to God’s standard of loving God with heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving my neighbour as myself. You too?

That’s why Jesus’ coming is such good news. People who don’t live up to God’s standards face God’s judgement. The punishment for sin is death. Jesus is God the Son, who entered his creation as a human to rescue people from sin and death.

Jesus won the victory at the cross. That’s where God the Father put the punishment for human sin on Jesus. He suffered and died in our place. Three days after he died, Jesus rose from the grave: victorious over sin and death. His resurrection gives us the assurance that we will rise again.

Baptism is a sacrament that connects us with Jesus’ victory. Guilt is washed away. Baptism is an assurance of new life.

LS – which we’ll celebrate next week – is the other sacrament. Eating and drinking at the Lord’s Table assures us that we are included in Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection. Jesus makes it possible for us live as his people and enjoy the presence of God w/o fear. You’re welcome at his table. Eating and drinking the LS is a guarantee that we will enjoy the great reunion and feast when Jesus returns set all things right in the world.

But as people who have been rescued, as people who have received God’s covenant promises and deep, deep love, we can’t live as if nothing happened. If we truly have been washed clean from sin and guilt, why would we return to using foul language, thinking filthy thoughts, and doing dirty deeds?

That is the kind of situation Moses addresses in Dt. 6. God has rescued his people from Egypt with a mighty hand. Now God uses Moses’ speech to set his people up for success as they enter the promised land. Moses reminds the people of God’s instructions. That’s why it’s called “Deuteronomy.”

Deuter = second, nomos = law.

Moses just finished reciting the 10 Commandments to God’s people in Dt. 5. Now in Dt 6, Moses tells them: “hear these commands and obey them.”

How do you keep God’s instructions for holiness fresh in your memory and make it alive for your kids and grandkids?

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 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. Deuteronomy 6:6–7 (NIV)

Not only hear and obey God’s instructions but make the Lord’s commands and decrees part of your daily conversation. It’s the kind of thing that gets celebrated in Psalm 119.

Oh, how I love your law!

I meditate on it all day long.

Your commands are always with me

and make me wiser than my enemies. Psalm 119:97–98 (NIV)

If God’s word is really going to come alive for our kids and teens, it needs to be alive for their parents or guardians and other influential adults in their lives.

Let’s not fool ourselves, what is important to you, what you speak passionately about at home, becomes important to the kids who look up to you.

If parents have a bad experience with a Ford pickup truck or a Case iH tractor, their kids will accept it as gospel truth that F150s or Case tractors are no good.

I’ve had kids too young to drive tell me that a Volvo truck is better than a Peterbilt or Freightliner.

Where do such opinions come from?

Is it because they sat behind the wheel and worked their way through all 18 gears, forming their opinion on that experience?

No! It comes from an adult sharing their convictions!

Don’t you want to stir the same brand loyalty to the Kingdom of God among your nieces and nephews?

Our kids are always listening, always modeling their behaviour on the adults they look up to.

If your kids know that you always vote Conservative or Liberal, NDP or the Rhino party, shouldn’t they also be aware of your allegiance to Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords in every part of Canada and all around the globe?

Listen, reading the Bible and praying with kids and teens at bedtime or at meals is vital to kids’ spiritual formation. Sunday School, Kids’ Bible Camp, and Bible studies at Crosspoint’s boys’ club and girls’ club are very important.

But living and active faith is not something we practice once a week and don’t mention the rest of the time. Faith is something that we live 24/7. If you’re working to obey God’s commands, decrees, and laws, it’s going to come up in conversations – especially with those nearest and dearest to you.

Questions and convictions about your faith will come up “when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” It will show up in kid’s play:

At Jack & Jill this week, one mom (she doesn’t go to church at Crosspoint) told me a game her daughter likes to play. She stacks all the pillows on the living room floor and wriggles into the pile. Then she stands up, scattering the pillows everywhere.

What’s the story behind the action?

She’s acting out Jesus’ resurrection from the tomb.

The little girl has heard the Easter story, probably many times. Jesus’ resurrection is vivid in her mind. It’s important to her parents. It has become important to her.