Sermon Tone Analysis

Learning the Family Business

It’s become less and less common that a child learns their life trade from their parents.

In past history, the majority of people in the world would learn what would become their career, or life’s work, at home and from their parents.

A child raised on the farm would learn to run a farm.

A child of a shopkeeper learned to be a shopkeeper.

And so on.

Of course, there are so many more available occupations today than there were even a hundred years ago, and you only need to go back a few hundred years or so to find a time when most children growing up was confined to learn the trade of their parents, or the trade of someone else in their local village.

Not only did children learn about their trades at home, they learned how to see the world.

They learned about conversation.

They learned about life.

They learned about their family history.

And most importantly, they learned about God.

Today we continue a look at Deuteronomy 6, and this lesson may come down hard on some of us.

I don’t apologize for that.

We need to take seriously all of the Word of God, and if we say we love our children, we owe it to them to teach them about the things of God.

Our focus this morning and next week will be verses 6-9.

When Moses said these words to Israel, it would have been important that they understood this sentence.

These words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

There are 3 basic understandings of what this means.

Which Words?

These words.

Well, what are these words?

Over time, there have been three basic understandings of what Moses meant by these words.

Option 1: The Shema: Deut6.4-5

Option 2: Everything Moses has said up until now in this speech in Deuteronomy.

This would include the Shema but also the Ten Commandments, and the historic content where Moses reminded the people of God’s faithfulness.

Option 3: Everything Moses says in the book of Deuteronomy.

I think all three options have their supporters, but I lean towards the 3rd option personally, and I will tell you why.

Option One is that Moses wanted the people to have on their heart the Shema, which includes what Jesus called the Greatest Commandment.

Certainly if Jesus said this was the greatest commandment, then it was, and therefore it makes sense that this would be something to keep on our hearts.

But also option 2 makes a lot of sense, since it includes the ten commandments as well as the recounting of God’s faithfulness.

Certainly we should find much benefit in knowing the history of God’s faithfulness, not only in the biblical text, but also we should be reminding ourselves often of God’s faithfulness in our own lives.

And we should share these stories of faithfulness with our children.

Both Jenelle and I remember stories of God’s faithfulness that our parents and grandparents shared with us, and we try to share stories of His faithfulness in our own lives.

And of course, the Ten Commandments set the basis for all the more specific laws Moses would later give.

So Option 2 makes sense.

But option 3 includes all of it, and I believe that to be really what Moses was saying.

It is important to know the basic and most important things and drive them home in repetition to ourselves and our families, but at the same time as we should always repeat the basics and know them well, we also must continue advancing.

I’m not athletic myself, but let me try a sports analogy here.

As a student begins to learn their sport, there are basics.

For basketball, it is dribbling, free throws, the basics of offense and defense.

The very best professional players continue to practice these basics again and again.

But they also build on these basics.

They learn more advanced moves and strategies.

Or take a musician.

How many of us tortured our families with endless repetition of “Three Blind Mice”, squawked out on some wind instrument?

And the endless practice of scales?

Over time, we improved, but those who did very well with their instrument never stopped playing scales.

I could go on with similar illustrations from various occupations and skills, but you get the idea.

Most people who want to succeed in life don’t stick with the basics.

They advance by building upon those basics.

We hear the phrase “back to the basics” all the time.

Not many of us would be satisfied in any skill we have if we never moved beyond the basics we learned early on.

So why is it, then, that so many Christians are satisfied to stay exactly where they are, exactly where they began in the faith, not ever moving beyond the basics of the faith?

Why are so many Christians uninterested in going deeper?

Why do so many among us willingly choose to not grow in the faith?

Maybe they would have preferred option 1.

I know the Shema, that’s enough for me!

Or maybe they think the ten commandments are important too, but that is enough, thank you very much!

If I were a betting man, I would bet that the vast majority of professed Christians in the US would not want to be convinced that Moses meant option 3.

That the basics were to be built on, added to, by going far beyond the elementary principles.

They may even chide me, and say, “Pastor Jason, get out of the Old Testament!

You need to focus on the new Testament.

We are not under the law, but under grace!

We just need Jesus!

Just give us the gospel!”

Well, I can answer that.

First of all, what some people think is the gospel is a weak version of it.

They just want you to say Jesus loves you and forgives you and leave it there.

But the gospel includes the understanding that we were dead in our trespasses and sins.

The gospel includes seeing that the law of the Old Testament shows us our sinfulness and hopelessness outside of a Savior.

And when we grasp that, then the gospel is more beautiful, more vibrant, more exciting than ever.

But if you were to insist on the New Testament, We could go to Heb6.1-2

Hebrews 6:1–2 (ESV)

Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity...

And the writer to the Hebrews chides them that they have not matured, they ought to be teachers, but they need to be taught again the basics:

And Paul chides the Corinthian church in a similar way, saying they have not been maturing in the faith.

1Cor3.1-3

And now, being challenged by Paul and the writer to the Hebrews, maybe someone would want to narrow my preaching even further, saying “just focus on the words of Jesus”.

OK then, Jesus also grew frustrated about those who were slow to grow in understanding.

Matth15.16

And again

You see, there is no where in Scripture that we can point and say, Jesus only wants us to know a little bit.

In fact all of scripture leads us towards understanding more about God, more about his plan of salvation, to go deeper and beyond the basics, to move from spiritual milk to spiritual meat.

No one who really loves God should be satisfied to not learn to know him better.

And yet, so many will say in churches today, stop focusing on the rules and all of that.

Focus on the love of Christ and how he cares for everyone.

Focus on ministries of compassion.

Focus on accepting everyone for who they are.

Focus on equality.

and on and on.

But whatever you do, don’t try and make us go beyond what our feelings are craving.

They say they want to show the love of Jesus, they may even use the words Great Commission.

And yet, when we look at the great commission, it is not only about telling people Jesus loves them, it is about teaching them to follow His commands.

You see, they usually just want this part of the Great Commission Matt28.18-19

But they forget about the next line: Matt28.20

John Piper has an excellent book called “What Jesus Demands of the World”, and in it he writes about all of the commands of Jesus found in scripture.

And I can tell you, that if you said out loud much what Piper writes in that book, you would be driven out of many churches today.

How dare you focus on what Jesus requires of us?

Of course, no one would say it that way, but that is really what people are getting at when they want salvation with no change of heart, and no change of behavior.