Multigenerational Faith
Pastor Matt Bell
Sermon Summary
In this sermon focusing on Deuteronomy 6, Pastor Matt emphasizes the importance of multi-generational faith and the blessings that result from obedience to God's law. Exploring the context of Moses’ final plea to the new generation of Israelites, the message is organized around four key themes: the purpose of the law, which is meant to bring blessing and flourishing; the pathway of faithfulness, rooted in loving God and diligently passing that faith down to our children; the priority of gratitude, which anchors our hearts to the Giver rather than merely to His gifts; and the picture of the gospel, where instructing children in God's commands provides natural opportunities to share the story of His salvation. Ultimately, the sermon challenges believers to weave a love for Christ and His Word into the everyday rhythms of their homes, ensuring that a genuine, abiding faith is authentically handed down to the next generation.
Sermon Transcript
Introduction
We are in a series at the church that we call the Year of the Bible, and we are as a church reading through the Bible together. And I want to encourage you, even if you've fallen behind or fallen off track, you can jump in with us this week with your church family in our reading of God's Word together. This past week, we spent the majority of our time in the book of Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy is an important book of the Bible. It is the retelling of God's law to the generation of Israelites who had grown up in the wilderness. The name Deuteronomy is taken from the phrase "second law" in the Greek language. Now, it is not a new law, but it is the preaching of that original law to this new generation of Israelites.
You may recall that when God first delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt, he met with them on Mount Sinai. And there he gave them his law, his teaching, his statutes. He was instructing them how to live as his people, showing them how to live when they would enter into the Promised Land. But as we continue to read the story of the book of Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers, we found that those children of Israel that had come out of Egypt, they were a very rebellious people. The Bible calls them a stiff-necked people. And they quickly, astonishingly, deserted the God who had set them free from slavery and reverted to worshiping idols. Time and again, these people grumbled and they complained, and they rebelled against God. And all of this attitude, it culminated as God was trying to lead them into the Promised Land, and they said, "We will not go. We will not go into this land because we do not believe that God is able to deliver it to us."
And so that generation, that generation that grew up in Egypt and had been delivered by God, because of their refusal to believe God and to obey him, they were forced to spend out the rest of their days wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. During that 40 years of wandering, the older generation eventually died off and their children came of age. And Deuteronomy is Moses, the leader of God's people, preaching God's law to this new generation, this generation that had grown up in the wilderness.
In Deuteronomy, Moses holds out for them the blessings that will come from faithfulness to God and to his law. But he also holds out for them the consequences that will come from unfaithfulness. Now, Moses will not go into the Promised Land with this next generation. And so this is his final appeal, his final sermon. And it's an impassioned plea to these children, these children that he has raised in the wilderness, for them to be faithful to God and to be faithful to his law.
The Influence of Deuteronomy
Now, Deuteronomy is one of the most influential pieces of literature that has ever been written. Maybe you have never read this book, but I promise you that your life has been profoundly shaped and impacted by the words in it. Deuteronomy is the Old Testament book most quoted by our Lord Jesus. Three times in the wilderness, Jesus himself was tempted by the devil, and three times Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy was also the book most quoted by the founding fathers of this nation in their personal and private and public writings. It's had a profound impact on the world that we live in. And the whole thrust of God's law, and the whole thrust of Deuteronomy, is that faithfulness to God results in multi-generational blessing. Faithfulness to God results in multi-generational blessing.
Scripture Reading and Prayer
And so with that introduction to Deuteronomy, I want to invite you to stand. We're going to read the first three verses of Deuteronomy 6. We're going to look here this morning at the whole chapter, but we're going to begin here with these first three verses. It says:
"Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rules that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over to possess it, that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey."
Father, we do thank you for your Word. It is so precious to us. It is, as the psalmist says, a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Lord, the grass of the field and the flowers fade and wither, but your Word is firmly fixed and established in the heavens. Lord, it never fades, it never changes, it never goes out of style. It is a sure and solid foundation, and has been for your people for millennia, and it certainly is for us, your people, in this day. Lord, even as the winds and the waves of culture are constantly changing, Lord, you instruct us, you teach us, you guide us. Lord, that we would not be tossed to and fro by every whim and wind of doctrine that blows around. But, Lord, that our hearts and our minds might be firmly fixed on your Word. And, Lord, that you would produce in us good fruit. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
A Multi-Generational Faith
You may be seated this morning. If you look here, even in the first three verses of this introduction to Genesis—I'm sorry, not Genesis, to Deuteronomy 6—you see that what is in view is multi-generational faith, multi-generational blessing. In verse 2, he says that you may fear the Lord your God, and that you and your son and your son's son may be growing up in this faith. And so this faith that we see here is a multi-generational faith. The faith we see in the Old Testament and the faith we see in the New Testament, it is a multi-generational faith. When God saves us, he's not just saving us as individuals; his desire is to see our whole family come to serve the Lord.
And so I have four headings for us this morning as we look at the entirety of Deuteronomy 6. We'll walk through it together. I have been frantically cutting things from my sermon this morning. As I printed out my notes today, I was shocked to see how many pages there was. There's a lot I want to say. And so I've been cutting, cutting, cutting, to try to focus this for you this morning. That's the good news for us. The bad news is it's still a lot of pages in the sermon, so I'm going to be moving quickly today. I hope that your ears can listen quickly for us this morning. There is a lot in these verses and in this chapter. The first two of the four points will be the longer two, and then at the end, we'll see the last two.
1. The Purpose of the Law
The first I want to draw your attention to is in these first three verses, and that is the purpose of the law. The purpose of God's law, the law that God was giving to his people. And he says it so clearly that the purpose of God's law is blessing. The purpose of God's law is to bring about blessing in the lives of his people. God wanted to bless his people.
So if we look back at Deuteronomy 6:1-3, we see that it says that you should obey. God gave you these rules, he gave you these commandments that your days may be long. That's a blessing. Long days. And it tends to be that those who live for the Lord and serve the Lord and apply the Word of God, that they tend to live longer than those who spend their life in reckless debauchery and wild living. Does that mean that everybody who follows the Word of God will have a very long life? No, of course, that's not how principles work. It's not necessarily a one-to-one promise, but in general terms, generally speaking, when you apply the Word of God, you generally live longer days than those who are just living lives of total headlong life into sin and death. That your days may be long. That is a blessing. That it may go well with you. That's in verse 3. That you may multiply greatly and to fill the land that God is leading you into. These are the blessings of God that are brought about by faithfulness to his Word.
Now, if you look in your Bibles down at verse 18, he again says that it may go well with you. If you look at verse 24, it says, "The Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always." And later on in that verse, it says that he may preserve us alive. There's a preserving aspect to the law of God. There's a goodness to our life. He gave them his law for their good. God gave them his law to show them how to live. They're going into this land. It was to keep them from sin and the destructive power of destructive behaviors and the destructive power of sin.
Why does God do this? He does this because he loves these people. He loves them. He delivered them from Egypt. He's sustained them in the wilderness for 40 years. He's being faithful to the promise that he made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. All of this is an expression of his love. God's law is an expression of God's love. Just as loving parents instruct their children, teaching them right and wrong, guarding them from things that would harm them, teaching them things that would prosper and flourish them, so God does the same with his people, with his children.
Faithfulness to God's law will result in his blessing, but disobedience to God's law will result in their disaster. And this is a pattern that we will see play out all throughout the Old Testament story as we continue to read through the Bible. When God's people are faithful to him, and worship him, and keep his commandments, they flourish. They're blessed. When God's people rebel against him, serve idols, forget his law, disaster ensues. And it's this pattern that plays out: that faithfulness produces blessing and unfaithfulness produces disaster.
The psalmist in Psalm 1 reflects on this. He says, "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night." Meditating on the law of God, obeying God's law day and night, produces blessing in the lives of God's people.
So there is much for us to learn from studying and meditating on the law of God and applying the principles that we find in it. Last night, as we were reading with our children, we read in, I think it was Deuteronomy 18. We were reading about what Israel was to do when they were to have a king. And it said that when you have a king over you, when he becomes king, what he is supposed to do is he is to write out a personal copy of God's law by hand. And that is to be his personal copy that he reads from and references to as he leads God's people. What a beautiful idea. Wouldn't that be a nice principle to apply even in our day? How about that? To have the commands of Christ, to have our president, and our senators, and our governors, have them have to write out the teaching of Scripture, the law of God, their own personal copy that they wrote with their own hand, that they would have to reference as they sought to lead and to govern the people. How amazing would that be?
The Law and the Believer Today
So there is much to learn from studying and meditating on this law that we find in Deuteronomy. But it's here that many Christians object to this idea that there's anything of value to be found in God's law, and they will say things like, "We're not under the law, we're under grace." And this is a profound misunderstanding of the teaching of the New Testament.
Now, it is true that we are not saved by our good works. Amen. We're not saved by keeping the law. And so as regards salvation, the salvation of our souls, our eternal destinies, it's not tied to whether or not we keep the law of God. We've all sinned and fallen short of God's law. We've all transgressed God's law, so we will not be saved by keeping God's law. So when Paul says we're not under the law, we're under grace, he's talking about salvation. We receive salvation by trusting in Christ and his perfect work, and his finished work on the cross, and we receive it by grace. Only by grace through faith are we saved in Christ and in Christ alone. Amen.
But then the question arises, okay, how should the saved live? How should those who have been saved by grace live? And if God's law exposes for us what sin is, wouldn't it flow that after we have been set free of sin that we wouldn't continue to live in sin? And so wouldn't it make sense that we should know what sin is? Therefore, we wouldn't enter into sin and continue to live in sin. And where do we find out what sin is? But in the law of God. So yes, we're not under the law as if we could keep the law and make ourselves holy and by some way contribute to our salvation. No, of course Christ has saved us completely and totally. But the question is, how do saved people live? How do the children of God live? And the law of God shows us the principles by which God's children should live.
And some here would object, "We're part of the new covenant. This is the old covenant. This law, it doesn't apply to us." For that objection, let's go to Jesus. Let's look at what he might say about this. We'll just go straight to the top. Jesus might have a word or two to say about that God's law has no place in the life of the Christian and the life of his disciples. In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5, Jesus says this: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets." What are the Law and the Prophets? The Law and the Prophets is the Old Testament. That's just shorthand for the Old Testament. Jesus says, "I didn't come to abolish the Old Testament. I haven't come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away..." Let's look around here today. Have heaven and earth passed away? Okay, so until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until it is accomplished. The iota and the dot, that was the punctuation of the law. If the periods and the commas of the law haven't passed away, how much more the teaching and the principles of the law of God? Therefore, Jesus says, "Whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
Jesus says, "I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law." What Jesus meant is that he came to establish God's law in its rightful place in the life of his followers, and to expose the true meaning behind what was written in the law of God. And so Jesus will take the law of God and he'll say, "You've heard it said, you shall not murder one another. You should not commit murder. But I say to you, if you harbor hatred in your heart or anger in your heart against your brother, you've committed murder in your heart." Jesus is not setting aside the law of God; he's applying it rightly in the lives of his followers. Jesus will say, "You've heard it said, do not commit adultery, but I say to you, if you look at anyone with lust in your heart, you've committed adultery in your heart." So all of Jesus' teaching doesn't set aside the law of God. It exposes the rightful meaning that it might have the rightful place in our lives.
There are others who would say, "Well, we live in a different time in a different culture. Certainly these laws, these antiquated laws about how to farm and raise cattle, and all of these caring for animals—certainly, this doesn't apply to us." For example, we read in Deuteronomy 25:4, "You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain." Now, for those of you who have oxen, that might be important for you. But for those of us who don't have oxen, which is probably all of us, we would be tempted to read this verse and say it has nothing to do with me. I'm not raising oxen, I'm not raising cattle. I don't have grain, they're not running a mill.
But what's interesting is the way the apostles and the way Jesus apply these laws. The apostle Paul will take this verse from the law of God about treating your oxen and he will apply it to how you treat your pastor. Look at 1 Timothy 5:17-18: "Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, 'You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,' and, 'The laborer deserves his wages.'" So Paul takes the principle of not abusing a beast of burden that is there for your benefit to serve you. He takes that principle from the Old Testament, the law of God, and then he applies it to the New Testament church that was abusing its pastor and taking him for granted, treating him as a beast of burden. So there is much to be gained from meditating on God's law. Let us not be so quick to dismiss two-thirds of our Bible as irrelevant, especially when you consider the blessings that are promised to God's people when we faithfully keep his law. The purpose of the law was blessing.
2. The Pathway of Faithfulness
The second section we see here is the pathway of faithfulness. That's verses 4 through 9, the pathway of faithfulness. In Deuteronomy 6:4, it says:
"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."
Here we see in this section the pathway of faithfulness. This pathway begins with what's called the Shema in Hebrew, or what the Jews call the Shema. It's simply the word "hear." We see that here at the beginning, verse 4. Listen, pay attention. Hear, O Israel. And this Shema is something that the Jews, even to this day, pray twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening: "The Lord our God, the Lord is one."
The first stop on the pathway of faithfulness is the identity of God. Who is our God? And here Moses is contrasting the one true and living God, the God who delivered them from Egypt, with all of the many pantheon of gods that the Egyptians served. The Egyptians were polytheistic, many gods. The true faith, the Christian faith, is monotheistic, one God. We serve one God. There's only one God. And who is this God that we serve? Well, as the story of Scripture progresses, the picture of God becomes more and more clear until we come to the pages of the New Testament, and we read about Emmanuel, God with us. We read about the Word that was made flesh and dwelt among us. We read about Jesus, the Son of God, who came and died on the cross for our sins. It starts with the identity of God. The pathway to faithfulness always begins with God. He is the initiator. He is the savior. He is the one who delivered them out of Egypt. He is the one who has delivered us out of sin and death and darkness. It starts with God, it begins with God: who he is, his nature, his character, and his mighty works. If we want to walk the pathway of faithfulness and experience the blessings that come from it, we have to know God. Who is God? He is Jesus Christ. There's only one way to the Father, and it is through faith in Christ. It begins with God.
He goes on to say in verse 5, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might." When Jesus is questioned, "What is the greatest commandment in the law?" Jesus will quote this here from Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 5. Jesus will say, "The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind." With everything that you are, love God. That is the greatest commandment. But the Scripture, the New Testament, exposes for us why we should love God. And it tells us that we love him because he first loved us. Yes, we are commanded to love God, but we should love him because he first has loved us. God had first loved the children of Israel, and how had he shown his love to them? By delivering them from Egypt. And God has shown his love for us how? In that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We love him because he first loved us. If ever you find in your life that your love for Christ, your love for God is growing weak, you don't need to focus on your lack of love. You need to focus on his abundance of love for you. Look to Christ. Look to his life, look to his death, look to his resurrection, look to the ways in which he has loved you. And as you focus in on him, your heart will be warmed to him and to the things of God. So love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your might. That's with your affections, that's with your thinking, that's with your strength, with your actions, with the things that you do.
The third thing on this pathway to faithfulness, he says, "And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart." Keep God's Word in your heart. Meditate on God's Word. Read God's Word, study God's Word, think on God's Word. Have God's Word on your heart. Now, we have God's Word in our heart. Why do we do this? Because we love God. Because we love God, we want to know what he has said. We want to know what he has spoken. We want to know who he is. And he's revealed himself in his Word. We want to know his will and his ways revealed in his Word. Because we love God, his Word is in our hearts. We hide his Word in our hearts because we love him.
Instructing the Next Generation
And then finally, he says, take this Word that's in your heart and teach it to your children. "You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." Because his Word is in our hearts, because we love him, because he's loved us, his Word just overflows from our hearts into the everyday things of life. It's not like it has to be forced out of us. It's in our hearts. The Bible says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. If you want to know what's in your heart, look at what's coming out of your mouth. If what's coming out of your mouth doesn't line up with what's in the Word or what you would hope would be coming out of your mouth, you need to get more in the Word of God and hide God's Word in your heart that it might come out of your mouth, that you might teach it to your children, that it would overflow out of your heart into the everyday things of life.
The home is to be the place where the gospel is seen and heard. It's not just when we come to church that the gospel is seen and heard. He says that you would teach them diligently to your children, talk of them when you sit in your house. I want you to notice here who bears the responsibility to instruct children in the ways of God. Notice here there's nothing in here about pastors, Sunday school teachers. It is parents. "You shall teach them diligently to your children." Parents, you need to feel the weight of this responsibility. This is what God expects of you. This is what God expects from you as parents. And we have not met our obligation of teaching and instructing our children in the ways of God simply by dropping them off at Sunday school. We must teach our children our own faith; the faith that we have, we must impart to them.
And here's the truth. You will do that. Whatever faith you have is the faith you will impart to your children. If it's a real, true, genuine, abiding faith based in love for God because he's loved us, you will have no problem talking about God and the things of God. If your faith is at the center of who you are, that will be handed down to your children. But if your faith is just some sort of Sunday go-to-meeting faith, or "Oh, it's the first Sunday of the month, so I'm going to go to church," or "I'm a C.E.O. Christian" (Christmas and Easter only, that's what C.E.O. stands for), you're going to hand that faith onto your children as well. Whatever faith you possess, you will hand down. If you're a hypocrite, you're going to hand that down to your children. Yes. It's the truth. You train up your children in the way that you live your life. Paul tells Timothy, "I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well." They handed their faith on to Timothy. And we must, in the same way, hand our faith on to them. We must share our love for Christ with our children.
You might be asking, "Well, how do I do that? How do I share my love for Christ?" Well, how do you share your love for anything? When you love something, it's not hard to share it with people. When you find a new restaurant and it's really good, you don't have a hard time telling people about it. You don't have a hard time taking people to it. When you're obsessed with a sports team, everybody knows it. How do you hand your love on to your children for the San Antonio Spurs? It's not hard. You watch the games, you take them to the games, you buy them the swag, the jerseys. You tell them the stories. "Let me tell you about Tim Duncan. Let me tell you about Manu Ginobili. You think Wembanyama's cool? Man, you should have seen Tim Duncan in 2003. Unstoppable. You should have seen him in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. He scored a quadruple-double, something that nobody ever does, but they didn't give him two of his blocks, and so it's only a triple-double, but he really... look at the blocks." Right? You do those things, right? It's not just me. Y'all do those too, right? I'm not just insane. Okay. So, it's not hard to pass on what we love. If you find it hard to pass on your love for Christ, I would say evaluate your love for Christ. Do you really love him? Or is it only lip service that you are giving him on Sunday morning because that's what you think you ought to do? These are hard words, but they cause us to evaluate our walk with the Lord because that is the walk we will hand on to our children.
In verse 7, he says to teach them. That word "teach," it literally means to sharpen, as if you were sharpening a knife. And so the image of sharpening is one of constant repetition. Just as if you have a dull knife, you don't get out the knife sharpener and run it by once and say, "Alright, this knife is now sharp." One stroke of the blade doesn't sharpen it. And likewise, one instruction of your children in God's Word and his commandments will not be of much effect. Because we live in a world where it's constantly pulling us away from God, away from the things of God, towards itself and the things of the world, and it dulls us to the Spirit of God. And so without continual, constant repetition and instruction in the Word of God, the souls of our children will become dull to the things of Christ. Teach them diligently. It's hard work, but it's good work. It's a continual sharpening day by day.
Notice here, he says, "Talk of the things of God when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way" (you could sub in there "when you drive in your car"), "when you lie down." It's when you go to bed at night, when you wake up in the morning. Notice there's no portion of time that is left unoccupied with meditation on the law of God. Whether they are at home, whether they're out and about, whether they're headed to bed, or rising for a new day, Moses says, place the law of God, the commands of God, the teaching of the Word of God, place it before your children. Remember the psalmist in Psalm 1: he meditates on the law day and night.
Binding the Word on Our Lives
He goes on to say in verse 8, "You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." Now, the Jews of Jesus' day took this literally. And even modern Orthodox Jews to this day, they will tie on their hands and tie around their head leather boxes that contain scrolls, parchments, of passages of the Torah. And they bind these little boxes—they are called phylacteries. They bind them on their hand. They bind them around their head twice a day as they go to pray, to observe what here is taught by Moses. And they think and they thought, especially in Jesus' day, that by strapping on these little boxes to their foreheads and their arms, that they had fulfilled what God was asking them to do through this. And in Jesus' day, he rebukes them for this behavior. Because they were making their boxes really big. "Look how holy I am. Look how much Scripture I can carry around on my head and on my hand." This sort of external, ostentatious mark of holiness. Jesus rebukes them and he says, "What are you doing? That's not the point of this."
So what does Moses mean here? These are figures of speech to say that God's law should rule over every area of life without exception. So to bind them on your hand is representative of your actions, that your actions, the things you do, should be submitted to the Word of God. You should obey the Word of God with your actions. That's what it means to bind it on your hand. To keep it as frontlets between your eyes, that is your thoughts, your thought life should be dominated by the Word of God. Paul will say, "Take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ." That our thought life matters. What are you thinking about? What are you meditating on? Are you meditating on Christ? His Word, his kingdom, his will, his ways? Or is it just the mundane things of life? Are you keeping his kingdom? "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness." Is it in your thoughts? That's what it means, frontlets between your eyes. He goes on to say, "On the doorposts of your house." It doesn't mean to put up a sign that says "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" on your door, though that's fine if you want to do that. But if you do that, you better make sure when you go in that house, that you're serving the Lord. So it's not about putting it on the door of your house. It's about your private life. Are you serving the Lord in your home? And then "on your gates." That's as you leave, as you go out into the public square, public life, that you are serving the Lord in public, just as you are in private. So your actions, your thoughts, your private life, your public life, Christ should be king over every area of our lives.
3. The Priority of Gratitude
Now, I told you the first two would be the longer two. The next two are going to be shorter, but the third thing that we see in this passage is the priority of gratitude. The priority of gratitude. And in verse 10, he says:
"And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full..."
He's saying, look, God is going to bless you, and he's going to bless you greatly, and he's going to bless you mightily. And when God does bless you with all of these incredible blessings, verse 12:
"Then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear."
He says, be grateful. Be grateful to the Lord. Don't forget about him. Continue to serve him with a heart of thanksgiving and gratitude. Gratitude, when we are thankful for the blessings God gives us, gratitude is what anchors our heart to the giver of the gift and not the gift itself. If you want your heart to be anchored to the giver and not the gift, cultivate an attitude in your heart of thanksgiving. Gratitude is what anchors us to God and not simply his gifts and his blessings.
The truth is that no amount of keeping God's law puts us in a position to be deserving of God's favor or blessing. Let me say that again. No amount of keeping God's law places us in a position of deserving God's blessing. We are all undeserved recipients. That's what the gospel teaches us. God blesses us because we are his children. We don't deserve to be his children. We are only his children on account of the work of Christ in our lives. So when we are blessed, and every good and perfect gift comes down from God above, let us be grateful and hear me, we are blessed. We are some of the most blessed people who have ever lived. Let us not forget where our blessings come from. Let us be grateful. Let us be thankful every day.
You know, this is why we end our service every week by singing the Doxology.
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow...
I don't know if you listen to those words; we sing them every week. You might have just thought, "Oh, that's a catchy little tune that makes us feel good as we go out to get our chips and salsa." It's meant to be more than that. It's meant to cultivate in us a heart of gratitude for the great and many blessings that we have, and even that we've experienced that morning in worship. Praise God. Bless God. Give thanksgiving to God. Take care lest you forget the Lord.
4. The Picture of the Gospel
And then finally, in the fourth heading, we see the first point in this passage, Deuteronomy 6, is the picture of the gospel. The picture of the gospel. In verse 20, it says:
"When your son asks you in time to come, 'What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?'"
He says, when you teach your children the Word of God, when you teach your children to obey God's commandments, when they ask, "What is the meaning of this?" They're going to ask. They're going to ask when you teach them, "What does this stuff mean?" And he says, when they ask you, then you shall say to your son:
"We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us."
When our children have questions about God and his Word and his commandments, which they will have if we are teaching them to our children, that's an opportunity to share the gospel with them. He says to the children of Israel under the old covenant, "Tell them about the salvation that God gave you that brought you out of Egypt." But when our children ask us about the Word of God, it's an opportunity for us to tell about the salvation that we have through Jesus Christ. A much greater salvation than the one that they had, by the way. And look how lengthy this story of salvation is.
This is a time for us to teach our children: God has saved me by his grace. I was dead in my trespasses and sins, but God, who is so rich in mercy, has bestowed his grace and his favor upon me. Why do I keep the teachings of Christ? Why do I obey the Word of God? Because God has loved me. Because God has set me free. Because God has set his affection upon me, and how could I do anything else but serve him? This isn't something I have to do, this is something I get to do.
Every week, my children ask me, "Do we have to go to church?" Not every week. I shouldn't say that, not every week. It feels like every week. Often, my children will ask, "Do we have to go to church?" And I will say, "We do not have to go. We get to go. We get to go to church. We get to go and worship God." This isn't a have to. This is a get to. This is a privilege to gather with the people of God, and to worship the Lord, and to celebrate what he's done in our lives, to remind ourselves of the great salvation that he has worked in us with his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, that he left heaven and came to earth. And when your children ask you about the commandments, it's an opportunity to teach them the gospel. But they will not ask if you do not teach them. You have to be teaching them.
Conclusion and Application
So just in closing, a few points of application. The first is that we would warm in our affections for Christ. That we would focus on Christ constantly, that we wouldn't be so silly as to tie Scripture around our head, but that we would focus on it in our thoughts day and night, meditate on it day and night, meditate on Christ day and night. That we would let his love for us warm our love for him. And that our love for Christ, that it would produce in us a love for his Word. Jesus says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." If we love him, we'll study his Word that we might be diligent in walking in obedience to him. Not because we have to, but because we get to. We're part of his family.
Let us also be faithful to teach our children God's commandments. Every day, like sharpening a knife, a little here, a little there. Every day, all throughout the day, when we wake up in the morning, when we go to bed at night, when we sit in our house, when we drive in the car, let us be faithful to be talking about the Word of God, the things of God. Let us teach our children the Ten Commandments. Let us teach our children the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Let us teach our children to love God and to love their neighbor as themselves. Let us teach our children to treat others the way they want to be treated.
And children, when your parents are instructing you in the ways of the faith, cooperate with them. Recognize that in their teaching you the Word of God, as they're reading from the Scriptures as we go through the Bible, recognize that they are being faithful to what God has asked them to do. And I would encourage all the children to be faithful to pay attention and to receive the instruction from their parents. Amen.
So, Deuteronomy 6, it really encapsulates the whole heart and the whole affection behind God and his law. God didn't give his law to his people because he was some mad, angry ogre. He gave his Word to his people because he loved them, to teach them the pathway of blessing, to show them the pathway of faithfulness that isn't for just one generation, but it's to the next generation, the next generation, the next generation. And this doesn't stop in the Old Testament. On the first day that the gospel is ever preached, Peter says, "This promise is for you and for your children." And that God is faithful to a thousand generations. Let us be faithful to our great God, who has set us free from sin and death, and who has given us his Word, that we might walk in it and experience his bountiful blessings in our lives every day. Amen.