Home:  Laboratory for applied theology

deut 6:1-12

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INTRODUCTION

1.  Today is a special day on our calendars and in our hearts.  We remember our Mom.  None of us would be here without her.   Having said that, I want us to look at this passage from both mom and dad’s point of view. 

2.  We used this passage a few weeks ago when we dedicated Hannah Logan McPherson.  It had application then.  It has application now.  Let’s put this passage into context as Moses delivered it to the Israelites and bring it into context of our family.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see our families are in bad shape.  Families are broken by divorce at about a 50% rate.  Families are torn by abuse.  All too often we hear of a parent or step parent abusing their children.  Several weeks ago Frankie told me about an account she read of a man, high of some drug, bit his 2-year-old child’s thumb off and had it in his mouth for 6 hours or so.  He wanted their DNA to mix.  We’re hearing all too often this abuse ending in the death of the child.  Families are torn by violence.  Two high profile cases here in tx of a mom drowning her 5 children and an estranged father killing his 2 daughters while on the phone with their mom. 

3.  Homes should be a secure peaceful refuge but too often becomes a battleground.  Our passage speaks to the issue of making families safe and secure.  It speaks to developing responsible God fearing, obedient children who grow up to become mature believers in Christ.  It speaks of families as a place of heritage making where God’s values are taught, caught, and passed from one generation to another.  This passage, when diligently applied to your home and mine, will drastically change the landscape of the home for the better.  If we apply what is contained in this passage, we’ll restore family to a wonderfully safe, secure and sacred environment.

I.  MANDATE

A.  CONTEXT

1.  Moses and the Israelite people are camped on the edge of the promised land.  They have wandered for 40 years.  Those 20 and older have died off because they disobeyed.  They refused to possess the Promised Land.  This new generation is about to enter the Promised Land.  Moses had led them thru the deliverance from Egypt and the wandering.  Along the way, he too disobeyed God.  As result, he could not enter the land but would only see it from afar.  Deut is the re-giving of the Law.  Deut means “repetition of the law”.  In ch 5, Moses delivered the core of the law—the 10 Commandments.  In ch 6, he continues re telling the law but gives this mandate.

2. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.  Impress them on your children.  In doing so, Moses declared every home is to be a school of applied theology.  It is to be a place where God’s teachings are taught, lived by, modeled and passed from one generation to another.  Parents are seminary professors.  Children are the learners, students, disciples.  The home is a religious laboratory where truths of God are taught, learned, and applied to daily lives in such a way God is obeyed. 

3.  Moms and dads, I submit to us this morning that Moses hit the nail on the head.  The mandate he gave to these Is parents is the mandate for your home and mine.  This portion of Scripture calls upon Xian parents to be xian parents and to teach their children overtly, consistently and unashamedly to become xians.  There is none of that I’ll expose my child to a variety of beliefs and let them chose for themselves hogwash.  Take these commandments to heart, live by them and impress them upon your children.  This passage establishes religious training and development where it should be—squarely upon the parents.  Although this is mother’s day, I suggest that the dad is held accountable for this because God designates him as leader of the home. 

4.  Moms and dads, teaching your children about God and leading them to faith in Christ is your responsibility.  It is not the church’s job.  It is not the school’s job.  It is your job.  If your child doesn’t turn out the way you’d hoped, don’t blame the church.  Look in the mirror.  We must take this responsibility seriously.  We can never forget, we are just one generation from paganism.  The church supplements on a regular basis what you do every day.  If the church teaches on sun the priority of God, that is, to love God with all your being and you teach that by example through the week, they get the point.  If the church teaches on sun the priority of God but during the week, you give God no time, your children will get the point as well.  Which example do you think they will follow? 

5.  We lament loudly that prayer has been taken out of school.  As result, our children are faithless.  I wish there was freedom of prayer in school but I fervently disagree that this is the cause of our children’s condition.  I had much rather see prayer in our homes than our schools.  Prayer is still in our schools through the hearts of those Xian teachers and children.  I heard one person say it like this:  as long as there are tests, there will be prayer in school.

6.  Here’s the point.  Christian parents, you cannot, you must not, delegate religious teaching to any organization including the church or to any other person including a SS teacher.  That is a God given mandate.  As X parents, we cannot be obedient to God and ignore this responsibility.  No matter how wonderful your child’s SS teacher is, your teaching or lack of it will fashion your child and largely determine if they are Christian or not.  I admire children and teens who come w/o parents.  They are exceptional and the exception. 

7.  Our mandate as X parents is to take the commandments of God live by them and impress them upon our children.

II.  MESSAGE

1.  What are we to teach?  We have the mandate to teach.  What’s the message?  Look at v 4,5.  There is 1 God.  We are to love God with all our being.  Since there is only 1 God, we are to give God our top priority.  There is one God.   Just as Is was entering a land filled with people who believed in many gods, so do our children.  We live in a very pluralistic society.  They may have classmates who believe in Mohammed to Buddha; from witchcraft to nothing at all.  They may be bombarded from their teachers to fellow students, their god is just one of many.  They may hear it doesn’t make any difference what you believe just as long as you are sincere.  All gods are the same. 

2.  How will they know the difference unless you teach them from cradle to the diploma there is 1 God?  He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  He is the God of the Bible.  He is Christ Jesus our Lord.  If you will not teach them the truths, their minds will be filled with half-truths and confusion.

3.  Moses said there is 1 God so therefore Love God with your entire being—with all your heart, soul and mind.  In other words, this God has priority over any god.  Moses warned them in v 14 not to follow the gods of those around them.  He tells us why.  God is a jealous God.  If you divide loyalty then his anger will burn against you.  That is not just OT stuff either. 

4.  We teach our children God deserves and demands our daily worship and service.   This is what loving God with all our heart, mind and strength means.  Jesus taught us in the NT that we cannot serve 2 gods.  We’ll love the one and hate the other.  We’ll be devoted to one and despise the other.  Simply, we cannot be lukewarm in our allegiance to God.  We’re either hot or cold.  We cannot straddle the fence.  We can dabble with other things during the week and come to worship on sun feeling all warm and fuzzy.  We may have the talk but that is of little value unless there is the walk.

III.  MODEL

1.  Our mandate is to teach our children.  The message is there is1 God and only 1 God and He demands out undivided loyalty.  What’s our method?  V 7-9 tells us how we are to do that.  We are to teach them from a life-oriented view not merely a fact-oriented view.  We are to teach them from our lives that God’s value shapes our values, attitudes and action.  Moses says the context of our teaching is done in our daily life and activity.  We can have the formal teaching that might take place in SS or family devotions.  Moses says the best format is when God and his word is a natural topic of conversation that occurs any time of the day and in anyplace or circumstance.

2.  When we see a beautiful sunset we can say that is pretty or we can ask our children to join us in admiring God’s creation and praising him for such beauty.  We can say we had good luck by avoiding a car accident on the way to work or God blessed us by giving us quick reaction to avoid hitting another car.  We can thank God at each meal for the daily provision of food and health to work or we can sit down and gobble it up during the commercials.  Dad, did you hear what is happening to so and so.  You can join in with what you heard or you can stop right there and teach them gossip is a means Satan uses to wound and destroy people and that you’ve committed not to repeat it.    When your child comes home and repeats what they might have heard about some ethnic group, those people are all alike, you can use that moment to teach love your neighbor as yourself, do to others as you would have them do to you, and all people are created in the image of God.  When we so vehemently denounce others what do we say about the God who created them?

3.  Moses says the model to teach the truths is every day life.  Our children say I don’t see why we have to learn geometry. I’ll never use that in life.  They say the same about God.  This is why we teach them and show them the difference God makes in our life in the normal context of living.  Going to church is not just a fact-finding trip where we learn more about God.  It is finding out truths of God that helps us to live better, fuller and more satisfied lives.  I want to encourage you to do a better job than I did with my children in teaching them the value of prayer and quiet time.  When our kids were smaller, I’d often go to my office and have my quiet time.  I wish my children had heard me call their name in prayer more than they did.  I wish I’d had less quiet in my quiet time to model to them the value of spending daily time with God in prayer and in Scripture.  The example would have far outweighed the noise.

4.  Teaching our children to incorporate God’s truths in our daily lives presupposes we are doing that.  We can’t model what we don’t possess.  This is what Moses means when he says to write these things upon our hearts.  This means we are to make God’s works a part of our lives.  They will be our daily guidelines that we use to determine how we act, our attitude, and even thoughts.  To tell you child to stop smoking because it is bad for you while blowing smoke in their face does little good.  We have many parents doing that to their children.  They drop their kids off for SS or worship but then go back home.  What’s the message?  Church is for kids.  When you get older, you’ll do like I did, grow out of it.  You won’t need that stuff. 

5.  Let me ask you.  What are you teaching your children that is more important than God?  Moses alerts them to this possibility.  In v 10-12, Moses warns them when you get into the land and find houses you didn’t build, land-producing crops you didn’t plant, and wells you didn’t dig, don’t forget WHO gave it to you.  Don’t forget to teach them the Giver is more important than the gift.  What are you teaching your children that is more important than God?  Materialism can lead people astray today just Moses warned it could in his day.  My cousin and her husband could not have children so they adopted a boy.  From his earliest years, he was told don’t stay on the farm, be a doctor so you can make a lot of money.  They taught him having things was more important than God.  He learned that lesson.  He died a year or 2 ago spiritually bankrupt.  His son who is in his early 20s is just like him but worse.  What are you teaching your children that is more important than God? 

6.  A neighbor quit work last winter and now spends her time chauffeuring her children from school activity to another.  I fear the children might learn from that the world revolves around them and what they want.  With the all the activities that are available and the various times which often conflict with church, I fear we are teaching our children that just about everything is more important than God.  Do God if you don’t have anything else going on but if the least thing is happening, forget God.   We often teach our teens that a car and PT job at 16 is worth more than God.  Is it any wonder when they are out of the house, they are out of God’s house as well?  What are you teaching your children that is more important than God?

IV.    GOAL   

1.  V 2 shows us the goal or result.  heritage,  fear/reverence of God and satisfied life.  Moses is right in reminding us what we do as parents will manifest itself in our children and grandchildren.  Our model and example leave its influence over several generations.  What you are doing now with your children influences people who are yet to be born. 

2.  When we impress these truths in our children through words and actions, we leave them with a reverence of God.  The proverb writer tells us train up a child in a way you want them to go and when they are old they will not depart.  Proverbs 22:6 (NLT)Teach your children to choose the right path, and when they are older, they will remain upon it.  There is no guarantee that when we teach x values to our children they will become xians.  But we sure stack the deck in God’s favor.  We know if we don’t teach them, they will in all likely never becoming a believer.

3.  When we follow God’s model we have a full life.  We dwell on how long we live not how well we live.  God does the opposite.  He is far more interested in how well we live.  If we are living well, how long doesn’t make much difference. 

conclusion

1.  Mandate.  Christian parents have the mandate to bring our children up as xians.  We are to model and embody the teachings of Christ so it will be easy for our children to come to X and to live a Xian life.  Message.  There is but 1 God who demands our undivided loyalty.  God is the creator and giver of life both phy and spiritually.  We owe God our complete allegiance.  Method.  We teach in the context of every day experience vs specific formal times to convey knowledge.  WE show the different God makes in our every day life.  We apply God’s word to our daily experience.  The result is we leave the brand of God in the hearts of our children and future children.  We lead them to reverence God with undivided worship and service.  That results in a full and meaningful life. 

 2.  Professor Parent, will you gain tenure because you’re doing a good job in training your children?  Will you gain tears because you forgot your home is a laboratory for learning and living?  It is not too late.  Repent.  Tell your kids where you’ve blown it and start modeling and embodying the teachings of Christ.