Today we are celebrating young families as we dedicate 7 children to the LORD; and my
desire for today will be that as a church will hear, focus, give attention to
the calling of raising up the next generation.
Just as a church cannot survive unless it reaches
out to young families, so spiritually, we also need to stay young! We can all think of churches that closed
their doors because they were all too focused on themselves. If a church does not have new, young babes in
Christ, it will simply grow old and not reproduce.
This is a message for parents, but it is also a
message and a calling for us to embrace what
it means to be spiritual parents.
Parents are the primary nurturers of their
children’s faith
Parenting is the ultimate form of discipleship. There is no substitute for a godly home where
God is on display in our lives.
The danger we all face is living on yesterday’s
stories or for some of you living on the spiritual bank account of your
heritage or the faith of your parents
We as the children of our heavenly Father need more
and more to ask him to provide us with his knowledge, wisdom, guidance, and
power to become the godly parents and grandparents he wants us to be. We need
to be praying not only for ourselves and the other parents we know, but also
for our children and their children, as well as for the children all around us
who are struggling.
The question I want to answer
today is: How do we stay young,
vibrant, alive as a church?
Shema Yisrael, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad.
What is that you ask? THE SCHEMA of course!
It was 3,500 years ago that the
nation of Israel first began to recite those words and continue to do so in the
synagogues. Still to this day, Jews still recite those words. It takes place twice a day every day as the
closing words of their morning and evening prayer or worship.
In spite of all of Israel direct
disobedience, impatience and forgetfulness, God spared them in his mercy and kept his
promise. He brought them to the land he
had promised—the Promised Land. Now,
after 400 years in Egypt and after 40 years of wandering in the desert, they
were finally about to set foot into their new home. But before they did, Moses stood up to
deliver his farewell speech and one last encouragement to the people.
The Hebrew word Schema means to HEAR and we see it multiple times in Deuteronomy 6
The ENGLISH word “hear” means to “listen with ATTENTION,” to “gain
understanding, to “LEARN.” It’s more than your ears. In Hebrew, to listen is to understand, to
“walk in the shoes” of the person who is speaking to you; to care enough about
them to listen with the heart, to honestly heed the one who speaks.
Hear with a
heart to obey! This is how
we will stay young and not die in the wilderness of sin and unbelief.
3 THINGS that will answer the question on how we
are to stay young.
1. Love
God with everything that is within you.
2. Impress
His commands on your children – when God shows up in your life, when He reveals
a life changing truth…
3. Let
your faith intersect every area of your life
1. Love God with everything that is
within you. 6:1-6
What is going on here?
An example is found in today’s verse.
In English, the words appear to be simply singular, but in Hebrew they
are more. Biblical exegetes point out
that “Lord” is “YHWH” (“Jehovah” or “Yahweh”), but “God” here is the PLURAL
form of “Elohim” The word chosen
carefully by the Holy Spirit for “One” is “Echad,” which is often a COMPOUND
“one” in the Hebrew language. It is like
saying, “One (echad) BUNCH of grapes”.
Absolute oneness (one grape) would require the word “Yacheed,” which is
never used for the unity of the Godhead in Scripture. Deuteronomy 6:4 actually says, “Hear, O
Israel: The Yahweh our Gods, the Yahweh is a Compound (plural) One.” To many, those are fighting words, for you
can find the “Trinity” (God is Three in One) in this verse.
Jesus referred to this command -
Mark 12:28-30; Matthew 22:37; Luke 10:27;
These commands are to be on your
hearts ; however who places these commands on our heart?
It is the Holy Spirit!
Hebrews 10:15 The Holy Spirit
also testifies to us about this. First he says: 16 "This is the covenant I
will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their
hearts, and I will write them on their minds."
The HS wants to lead you into greater
depths of understanding God’s love for you.
We love because He first loved us.
1 John 4:19
Generation 268
ROOTED IN THE CONFESSION OF ISAIAH 26:8
Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name
and renown are the desire of our hearts.
PASSION EXISTS TO GLORIFY GOD BY UNITING STUDENTS IN WORSHIP, PRAYER
AND JUSTICE FOR SPIRITUAL AWAKENING IN THIS GENERATION.
SINCE 2007, PASSION’S DO SOMETHING NOW INITIATIVE HAS POWERFULLY WED
THE EXPRESSION OF WORSHIP WITH JUSTICE AS STUDENTS HAVE GIVEN OVER $8 MILLION
TO DOZENS OF PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. PASSION IS MORE THAN MUSIC. MORE THAN EVENTS. PASSION IS A GENERATION LIVING FOR HIS
NAME. THE WAVE IS GROWING INTO A GLOBAL
AWAKENING.
A passion for God is more than
just singing, it affects every fiber of my being. It affects how I spend my money, my
time, my very actions.
2. Impress His commands
on your children v7a
The Hebrew way of teaching was
continual repetition. To impress means
to be diligent about it. One of my goals
that I have not been good at keeping is to continually open the Word of God
with my kids. We must be intentional.
Rylan has got me on to
geocaching! You use the app feature that links up with your GPS on
your phone and go out searching for hidden treasure. So, how about with Jesus…in whom are hidden
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge! Colossians
2:2
In the Jewish tradition the
content of the commands to teach were found in thirds.
Mishnah – oral traditions were
taught on everything from giving or the tithe, prayers and blessings, laws of
purity, sacrificial system, Sabbath and festivals, agricultural laws…
Talmud - The Talmud contains the
opinions of thousands of rabbis on a variety of subjects, including law,
ethics, philosophy, customs, history, theology,
Torah - The Torah consisted their covenant with God
and Moses’ law that was handed down at
Mt. Sinai and teachings on the Tabernacle….Genesis to Deuteronomy. We refer to this as the Pentateuch.
Loving God
includes speaking privately yet openly
of His ways and of Him without being self-conscious creating physical reminders of God and His
teachings for oneself, as exemplified in the commandment of tzitzit [fringes]
as a reminder to observe His
commandments and to be holy to your God (Num. 15:40), and ensuring the public awareness of Divine teachings. What could be more natural than that children
observing their parents doing such
things would be curious? Their questions, prompted by activities that they do not fully understand but which they
sense to be terribly important to their
parents, are to become the launching point for true teaching and learn. Charles Isbell
Titus 2
But we proved to be gentle among
you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. 1 Thessalonians 2:7 NASB
Even when I am old and gray, do
not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your
mighty acts to all who are to come.
Psalm 71:18 NIV
3. Let your faith
intersect every area of your life v7b -9
You may know that Israel did not
do so well with this encouragement. It
was not very long before they refused to hear what God had to say. Instead they worshiped idols and false gods. They forgot many of the commands of the Lord
and reveled in gross sins of every kind.
And clearly, they didn’t teach their children in the ways and knowledge
of the Lord and his commands. They were
so foolish that they only took Moses’ words literally. They made little boxes called phylacteries
and rolled up Bible verses and put them inside and then tied those boxes to
their hands and foreheads. They wrote
Bible passages on their doorframes. But
over time, and still to this day, it became just a cultural custom or a good
luck charm. In other words, they heard
what Moses had to say but they weren’t truly listening.
There is so much that competes
for our attention and time…. we are distracted by so many things that consume
our time…
We live in a culture of
accessibility and a culture of continual comparison.
As one person writes….we get so consumed with our busy lives—we
get up, get the kids up, cram food in everybody’s face, get the kids to school,
go to work, work all day long, pick the kids up from school, make dinner, have
a few minutes of family time. I know I
feel lucky when we get more in with our kids than just the apple and onions of
their day. Then we work hard at getting
the kids to bed, and then we crash.
Where is there time for reading the Bible and hearing what God has to
say? (And you don’t have to have kids to
live that kind of a busy life). We don’t
always do so well at hearing the Lord.
Don’t let others set your
schedule…guard it, block it.
We have to plan, prioritize and
protect it much like we do with date nights for married couples.
Turn the iphones off, the ipads,
ipods and listen to the Great I AM!
For us today, the verse might read, "Tell them about me
when you're waiting at a traffic light (or in line at Tim Hortons), when you're
traveling on vacation or on the way to school, when the alarm goes off in the
morning and when you collapse into bed at night after soccer, school or surfing
the web, or even when something funny opens the door for conversation.
Look for the teachable moments in your everyday experience.
My brother told me one of the ways he would get his
children’s attention was road trips.
They would just get in the car and drive and had some of their best
conversations on the road.
There was a time when Sharon shared with our kids that God
laid on her heart a specific amount of money that we were to give away. Guess what, the exact amount came in later
that week through her business. As she
told our kids the response was, “of course, you have to give the money away!”
Jordan got a raise earlier this year, but his workplace
forgot to make the change so they gave him a bonus cheque for the amount that
they had to make up. When Jordan
received it, he didn’t even hesitate to give the money to the LORD as he just
looked at it as money that God had blessed him with and he was going to bless
others. Our children can impress truths
on us as well and one way is generosity!
The remainder of the chapter in
Deuteronomy 6 is this… Don’t forget the LORD when your life is good. Don’t forget where you came from!
Questions to share with our kids…
When has God showed up in your life?
When
we have felt that He didn’t…
When has His Spirit revealed a life
changing truth?
The Takeaway
LOVE God as your Father
IMPRESS His truth by the the Holy Spirit
REMEMBER His way through Jesus
IMPRESS His truth by the the Holy Spirit
REMEMBER His way through Jesus
Everyday
