Sermon Tone Analysis

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Scripture Reading:

Pastoral Prayer

Pray for transformation of our hearts

Pray for God to draw people to this place

Pray for God to make disciples

INTRODUCTION

I want to talk to you today about “The Faith of The Next Generation”.

I heard this statement the other day by my professor and it has been deeply embedded in my heart.

He said, “In America, we are on the brink of losing an entire generation” AND “Generation Z could be considered an unreached people group”.

Gen Z are those whose age is between 9-27 (68 million in the United States).

Can you imagine the impact upon our nation if an entire generation rejects Christianity?

It is this generation that will be leading our cities, our states, and our nation in the years to come.

It is this generation that will be teaching our children in schools, that our children will be working for, and that will be responsible for leading the next generation after them to live with Christian principles.

Now you might say, “what does this have to do with me?”

That is true, but the church cannot simply turn a blind eye and let someone else worry about it.

It is our responsibility to do everything we can to pass our faith down to the next generation for the sake of our children, our grandchildren, and great grandchildren.

I’m going to show you today that for thousands of years, the primary place where the transfer of faith has taken place has been the home.

I truly believe if the faith is not being taught in the home, then the chances of the next generation walking with the Lord are slim to none.

And I also believe the reason so many children are not following the Lord today is because children are no longer being discipled in the home.

I want you to think about this: Children spend an average of 40 hours a week in school.

Learning secular education, hearing worldly ideologies and explanations about Creation and mankind, and listening the foulest language, dirty jokes, and everything else you could imagine.

They spend another 4-10 hours a week watching television, playing on devices, or looking at some kind of social media.

The rest of their time is spent sleeping or cleaning their rooms, or playin outside.

If the church only has these children 1-2 hours per week, How can it ever compete with the world that has them 40-50 hours per week?

This is why God told Israel that the next generation must be taught and trained by them.

This is why God told Israel that the future of their people would depend upon them today.

In Deuteronomy 6 God gave a charge to Israel before they entered the promise land.

This charge was directed towards the families and God said, If you will to teach children to obey His commandments, it will ensure the their survival.

The commandments were the very foundation of life, telling man exactly how to live.

God is the great Creator, the Giver of all life; therefore, He knows exactly how life should be lived.

This was the very reason He had given the commandments to man, to show man how to live a full and victorious life.

If a person obeys God, he will experience the fullness of life and conquer all the enemies who oppose life, seeking to drag him down into the pit of death.

People fear many things in our country, the Corona Virus, Putin, inflation…BUT these are not our biggest threat.

Our biggest threat is God.

“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Prov 14:34).

The faith of the next generation hinges upon the obedience of today’s Christians

Explanation:

Moses is giving a charge to Israel before they enter the promise land.

And in this charge is something called the Shema.

And this Shema became the prayer of the prayer of the Jewish people who would recite this everyday and every night.

The Shema is about loving God and teaching the next generation to love Him and follow Him.

Before Moses gives the Shema, he tells them why it is so important that they listen to what he has to say:

“Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.

Look at these key words “that you might do them” AND “so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord”

Our present state of obedience plays a major role in the faith of the next generation.

We should never think that our children will somehow pick up this faith that we have not lived out in our own lives.

We should never think that somehow the church will replace us and our kids will follow its teaching over our actions.

Children obey whom they can trust.

And children trust their parents.

They look to their parents for guidance, they trust them to provide for them, and they look to them for the principles to live by.

Why does moses want them to do what he commands them?

So that they will learn to fear God

Fear of God: The word fear means to honor and reverence God to such a point that a person worships Him.

The person who truly fears God surrenders his life to serve God, to obey God just as He commands.

But the word means more than just reverence and honor: it means to respect the justice and judgment of God, to fear what God can do to a person if he disobeys the commandments of God.

The very purpose of Israel teaching the commandments to God’s people is just this: to teach the fear of God

And the only way they could teach that fear of God, was living it out in their own lives.

Bridge:

Children are really good observers.

They follow the old saying, “monkey see, monkey do”.

They will learn more from watching then they will from listening.

Do you know how I know that?

Because children are like mirrors.

When you raise them, you will begin to see some of your not so good characteristics show up.

And the first question we ask is, “where did you learn that!?”

And it will dawn on us that they learned it from us.

Not from our verbal teaching them, but by watching us.

This is called observational learning.

And what Moses is warning Israel not to do is say one thing and do another.

Because if they tell their children to fear the Lord, yet do not fear Him themselves, the children will follow in the parents footsteps.

Application:

I realize that most of you in here have raised your children.

But this verse does not only refer to children, but to grandchildren, and we could even say great grandchildren.

And even further that that, there is a whole world out there watching the church today.

And what this next generation wants to know is “does the faith we claim to have truly make a difference in our lives?”

And for those of you who are mothers and fathers your faith is paramount in your children’s life!

Your faith lived out is far more important than you teaching them to make money, far more important than you sending them to college.

It is our faith that gives life!

Nothing else in this world will give life to your children!

It does not matter how much money they have, if they do not have your faith then they are hopeless!

Here is something else we need to consider as a new church plant.

We must be intentional about reaching this next generation!

Gen Z does not want to come to religious gathering full of people who claim one thing and do another!

They want to be a part of something authentic!

And the survival of this church is dependent upon us reaching those between 9-27 y/o.

How can we pass this faith on to the next generation?

1) The Word of God must be internalized

Explanation

“shall be on your heart”— that is, the people were to think on them and meditate about them, so that obedience would not be a matter of formal legalism, but a response based upon understanding.

By reflecting on the commandments, they were reflecting on God’s words (6:1); and by understanding the path of life set down by the commandments, they could live the ay God intended them to live.

The heart in the OT is the center of the intellect, equivalent to what we would call the mind.

So God is tells Israel that His Word, His commandments, His statues must be imprinted within their minds that they become the very source that they draw from to live!

Bridge:

It was much harder to know God’s Word in those days, because they did not have Bibles.

This was an oral culture who listened, heard, memorized, and obeyed.