Please turn with me to Deuteronomy 6.  We’ll be starting at verse 4.  Today is our last look at Deuteronomy chapters 4 to 6 and “Possession - Claiming God’s Promise.”  Let me remind you that the series is online.  The URL is on your Message Notes.

Also on your message notes there’s a second part.  The “Taking It Home” part.  There are questions there that are take home questions.  Some questions to help you think about and reflect on what we’ve been looking at this morning.  Maybe something you’d like to think through during your personal time with God this week.  Maybe something you’d like to think through and discuss with others.

We’ve been looking at what it means to step forward in faith trusting God.  To live our lives trusting that God will actually be there with us as we go through the stuff of life and even death.  

Moses speaking to God’s people - as they’re ready to take possession of the land that God has promised them - Moses is reminding God’s people of who God is and what God has done.  God delivering them out of the bondage and slavery of Egypt.  That same God will be with them as they step forward in faith into the Promised Land.

Because we’ve seen what God has done we know who God is and what God is going to do.  God saved us.  Jesus undeservedly dying on the cross in our place - setting us free from bondage to sin and death.  That’s what God has done - revealing that He is the Holy God of justice and love and grace and mercy.  As those who’ve come to trust Jesus as our Savior - because we know what God has done - we know that God will be there with us in whatever comes in this life and forever.

Moses is teaching priorities.  How to step forward in faith trusting God.  First:  Love God supremely.  Love God with everything you are.  Second.  Love others sacrificially.  Desire God’s best for others - even our enemies.  Life isn’t about us.  Life is about what God wills to do in us and through us to His glory.

Moses teaches God’s people to fear God.  When we understand who God is and who we are before Him - the only reasonable response is to passionately - from the core of who we are - to give God the authority to set the priorities and the purpose for our lives.  To live in obedience to Him so that our lives really are about God and what He wills to do in us and through us.

The crucial urgency of that is found in where Moses takes us next - God’s concern for Generation Next.  The effect our lives have on the next generation.  Living in the promises of God isn’t just about us.  Its about mentoring and training and discipling those who come after us.

In January of last year - at Millard South High School - Omaha, Nebraska - Robert Butler, Jr. a high school senior - recently transferred to Millard South - shot two administrators - the principal who survived and the Vice Principal, Vicki Kasper - whom he murdered.  Then Robert Butler killed himself.

January - last year - a student brought an automatic handgun onto the campus of Gardena High School - down in the LA area.  Had the gun in his backpack when he came to health class.  The backpack got dropped.  The gun went off shooting a 15 year old girl in the head - critically wounding her - and shooting a 15 year old boy in the neck.  It seems that may have been more intentional than just an accidental shooting.

October - last year.  Cape Fear High School - Fayetteville, North Carolina.  Two teenagers were taken into custody after shooing a 15 year old fellow student.

Last month - Chardon High School - outside Cleveland, Ohio.  Remember this?  17 year old T.J. Lance opened fire on his fellow students - killing three and wounding six others.

This is just the tip of an iceberg.  The number one cause of death for teenagers is accidents - think driving.  Number two - homicide.  Number three - suicide. (1)  Today, the pressure on kids and parents is tremendous - drugs, stealing, violence, sex, disease, loneliness, emptiness.  It doesn’t matter a whole lot whether your in a public school or a private school. 

What are parents to do?  What is anyone - who has a concern for the next generation - to do?  How can we educate our children to survive in today’s world - and live in our cherished beliefs and culture - to keep going through life stepping forward in faith trusting God?

Look with me at Deuteronomy 6 - starting at verse 4:  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.

“Hear, O Israel:  The Lord our God, the Lord is one”  is one of the greatest theological statements in Scripture - if not the greatest.  Right up there with Peter’s declaration, “You are the Christ, the Son of the loving God.”  (Matthew 16:16)

Theologians call this the Shema.  Which is the first word in the sentence - “Hear”  “shema.”

“Hear, O Israel” is an impassioned plea.  “O Israel… Hear!”  Like a parent pleading for the heart and life of a child.  Please hear me.  Please understand this.  This is so crucial to life that if you don’t get this your life is going to be a disaster.  Hear - because if you don’t get this you don’t get God.  You’re not going to understand who God is.  You’ll miss the point of Scripture - of life itself - of God’s deep love for you.

“The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”  Grab the uniqueness of God - Jehovah.

Jehovah is the one absolute God.  Not an abstract notion - not some kind of absolute idea or an absolute philosophy.  He’s not some national god - like the gods of Egypt or like Baal.  He’s not the Christian god or the god of Islam or the Jewish god.

Its not like there’s a lot of names for god and we’re all like pilgrims on a spiritual journey wandering up a mountain looking for basically the same god who’s someplace on the summit.  There is no polytheism or syncretism here. 

Jehovah is the unique God.  The one absolute living God.  Period. 

The point is that the one absolute God has revealed Himself to Israel as the one absolute God.  He’s made Himself known in His deeds in Israel for the salvation of the whole world.  As the one God, therefore, Israel is to love Jehovah, its God with all its heart, with all its soul, and with all its might.  Love God supremely.

Our heart comes first.  The heart is our seat of emotions - love in particular.  Its that place deep within - the unconscious core of who we are that compels us to passion in our endeavors.  Love God with all your heart.  One cannot love God half-heartedly.

Our soul - in this context - our soul is the center of our personality - our self-conscious.  The part of us that is self-aware and thinks.  Loving God should capture and center the attention of our minds. 

Our might is the strength of our body - physical action - obedience.  Loving God isn’t just an intellectual exercise in religious theology and doctrine.  Loving God with all our strength is how our lives are lived in the rubber meets the asphalt reality of life.

Loving God supremely is first - it is the spiritual principle from which flows everything else we do in our relationship with God.  It is the core of our passionate response to the absolute living God.

Going on in verse 6 - “and - meaning if you heard number one - “shema” -here’s what comes with it - and these words”

If you go back up to Deuteronomy 6:1 - Moses is talking about the statutes and rules - even what we looked at in chapter 5 - the Ten Commandments - “these words” are the “how” of how God’s people are to live as God’s people when they enter into the land that God is giving them - stepping forward trusting God in faith.  “And these words - verse 6 - and these words that I command you today shall be - where?  on your heart.”

What does it mean that these words shall be on your heart?

The commandments of God are to be an affair of the heart.  Not just a memorized list of do’s and don’ts.  Not an intellectual or religious exercise.  Not mere legalism.  But internalized.  Meditated upon.  So that not only will we know the right path through life - we will walk down the right path of life - stepping forward in faith trusting God with our life.

Are we together?

Let me share a true story with you.  Maybe some of you are familiar with this story.  

On the west side is the town of Patterson.  Out Main Street from Turlock at I5.

Back in 1986 - in Patterson - 15 year old Felipe Garza, Jr. fell in love with 14 year old Donna Ashlock.  Donna thought Felipe was sweet but she was going with Arthur Oliva.  So she really didn’t return his love.  But it seems that that didn’t keep Felipe from loving Donna.  Any of you remember this?

One day, Donna doubled over in pain.  Doctors discovered that Donna was dying of a degenerative heart disease and desperately needed a heart transplant.  Felipe heard about Donna’s condition and told his mother, “I’m going to die and I’m going to give my heart to the girl I love.” 

Sometimes teenagers say things that sound pretty irrational to their parents - so his mother didn’t really pay too much attention to it.  After all, Felipe appeared to his mom to be in perfect health.

Three weeks later, Felipe woke up and complained about a pain on the left side of his head.  He began losing his breath - couldn’t walk.  When he was taken to the hospital they discovered that a blood vessel in his brain had burst.  Felipe died.

While he remained on a respirator, his family decided to let physicians remove his kidneys and eyes for people in need of those organs, and - according to Felipe’s wishes - his heart for Donna.  So, Donna received Felipe’s heart!

When Doctors’ Hospital in Modesto - where Felipe had died - when Doctors’ Hospital told Donna’s family that her boyfriend had died and left his heart to Donna they though it was Arthur.  Tough moments.  Can you imagine?

Then they found out it was Felipe.  More tough moments.  Donna’s father told her.  “He donated his kidneys and eyes.”  There was a pause and Donna said, “And I have his heart.”

I’ve read that the funeral procession - for Felipe - the procession through the orchards and fields around Patterson - seemed to go on forever.  The procession was so long it could have been for royalty or a celebrity.  But it was for Felipe.  His only claim to fame was his love and his heart.

It’s unforgettable when a person gives up his life so that someone he loved could live.  It would be unforgettable for us - if we had received a new and healthy heart from someone who loved us more than we could appreciate.  And every moment we would live - would be a tribute to the one who loved us so much that he gave his life for us. 

Moses says in verse 5 - “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might....and these words which I command you today shall be on your heart.”

The greatest commandment is not a long indexed list of “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots” - but a call to the total surrender and devotion of our lives to God - who has given us His heart - His Son Jesus Christ.  Obedience is learning to respect, to love, to thank, and to worship God - with everything we are in every moment of our lives - in a loving relationship with the one unique absolute living God who has loved us so completely.

These commandments shall be on your heart.  Are we together? 

Moses’ second point we want to grab onto this morning comes in verse 7:  “You - parents - you shall teach them - teach what?  The commandments - statutes and rules - the “how” of the “how” to live life stepping forward in faith trusting God - you shall teach them diligently to your children.”

For those of you who are trying to figure where all that fits on the Message notes.  Point one is My Heart.  Let’s say that together.  “My heart.”  Point two is Their Heart.  Let’s say that together.  “Their heart.” 

Loving God is not just trying to live in obedience to His commandments.    Its because we love God that we seek to live in obedience to Him.  And our children - those around us - will know if we’re simply obeying God or if we’re actually deeply in love with Him.

Our kids know us.  They know if we just come here because we’re Christians and that’s what Christians do.  They know if we do things for the church because we feel we’re obligated to.  They watch to see if we act one way here and another way at home.  They listen to our words - our running commentary about people and what goes on - especially at church.  They hear our vocabulary.  They know what really interests us.  They know if we live up to a set of morals or standards because of our culture or because of our relationship with God.

If we’re trying to teach our children to love God and obey Him - and we ourselves are not passionately committed to the priority of loving God - our children will reject our teaching as hypocritical - and more than likely will reject God.

When I was younger, our family would go on these camping trips with another family.  We’d get up in the morning and their boys and I we’d be ready to go.  There were trails to be hiked and lakes to be swam in - lots of stuff waiting to be done.  The sun is up.  Why aren’t we moving?  Its at least 8:30 and we could have done about a million things already. 

But, the parents had this religious conspiracy thing going.  Every morning - even though it wasn’t Sunday - we’d have to have devotions.  One dad would open his Bible and read us a passage.  And then while we all had to sit there he’d slowly explain what the passage meant to him.  And then we’d have a discussion about the passage.  And then - they’d have us spend time in prayer.

Even though back then it was torture for me to sit there, I learned something about my parents.  God came first.

One time I was thinking about buying a car.  And I really wanted the car.  It was a Mustang fastback in really excellent condition - and it was white with a blue interior.  Blue is my favorite color.  And then my parents asked me a really irritating question, “Have you prayed about it?”

I didn’t want to pray about it.  God was going to talk me out of buying the car and I wanted the car.  But I learned - Seek God first.

The great disaster in our society today - and in our homes - and in our culture - even in the church - is that we’ve forgotten that God comes first.  People just don’t see how a relationship with God makes sense in their everyday lives because many times they’ve never been shown what it means to live with God in the everyday circumstances of our lives.

Teenagers that leave the church - as they transition from high school to college - number one time of life when Generation Next wanders away from God.  The number one reason is because they’ve never grabbed the relevancy of following God in the reality of everyday life.

Dr.  James Dobson - of Focus on the Family - commenting on the severe circumstances in which our children are growing up - Dr. Dobson writes, “The bell sounds.... for a nation that is turning its back on the moral law it once cherished - a law written on every human heart, yet unrecognized by many members of the younger generation who have never heard about it from their elders.  Are we surprised at the spectacle of children killing children?  Are we shocked to open our newspapers, turn on our TVs and look into the faces of a couple of Opie and Beaver look-alikes charged with five counts of capital murder?”  (2)

Dr. Dobson wrote that back in 1998.  The warning bell sounds.  How crucially urgent for us today is what Moses taught God’s people back then - especially as our society moves farther from God and the pressures on Generation Next increase.

The bottom line is this:  There’s a huge reason why Moses begins with our heart and then moves to their heart - the heart of our children.  When it comes to following God through life we can only teach who we are. 

Moses writes - verse 7 - teach the commandments diligently.  The New Living Translation renders it, “Repeat them again and again to your children.”  Repetition is the key to… learning.  Literally the Hebrew means “Drill it into them.”  Constant - focused - purposeful teaching.  There’s no time when we’re not teaching about what it means to love God supremely - to step forward in faith trusting God.

Here’s how - Moses goes on - verse 7 - here’s how you diligently teach them - “Talk of them when you sit in you house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down.”

The Hebrew word for Tabernacle - think a holy sacred place - is closely related to the Hebrew word for dwelling.  A word that’s sometimes used for a house - a dwelling place.  Meaning:  The Hebrew house is not just a place to hang your Yarmulke.  Its your sanctuary.

Moses is talking to who?  Parents.  And especially fathers.  Spiritually the head of the home.  The Hebrew word for Torah - the commandments and statues and rules that God spoke through Moses - the Hebrew word for Torah is closely related to the Hebrew words for parent and teacher.

Meaning - hang onto this:  The sanctuary of the home is the primary place of spiritual instruction.

Its been said that the Jewish religion and culture would survive even if all the synagogues and the temple were destroyed because the center of Jewish education is in the home.

Especially at Shabbat - at least once a week - at sundown Friday - the Hebrew home was a place of prayer - a place of study - a place to gather spiritually.  The dinner table became an altar.  On the table is the “hallah” - two loaves of bread that represent God’s presence.  Songs of praise are sung.  Words of Scripture are exchanged.  Fathers - like priests at the Tabernacle - instructing the family in Torah - God’s law.

The responsibility to teach our children about God - what it means to live life stepping forward in faith trusting God - that responsibility is given to their parents.  A lot of parents abdicate that responsibility to AWANA or Vacation Bible School, or Children’s Church, or some other ministry.

Last Friday night we watched the movie Courageous.  That movie focuses on the importance of Godly fathers.  Fathers who are engaged - not just physically there - but engaged with their children.

Remember this from the movie?  When a father is absent a child is 5 times more likely to commit suicide or do drugs.  20 times more likely to end up in prison.

The presence and involvement of a father is positively associated with a child’s well being, educational attainment, behavioral development, self-esteem, and avoidance of high-risk behaviors.  Children growing up without a father present are more likely to suffer physical, emotional, or educational neglect, engage in juvenile delinquency including violent crime, abuse drugs and alcohol, and become a teenage mom living in poverty.  90% of all homeless and runaway children come from fatherless homes.

A survey done by the National Center for Fathering in 2009 found 70% agreement of those surveyed that the physical absence of fathers from the home is the most significant family or social problem facing America today.  (3)  Proof?  Look at Merced.

Fathers are the primary hindrance or help to a child’s relationship with God.  Known reality - if a mother comes to church that’s great.  The children will come too.  But, if a father comes - when that child becomes an adult - that child is about significantly more likely to keep on following God through life.

We don’t want to take anything away from the importance of mothers.  Mothers are hugely - let me repeat that - mother’s are hugely important to their children.  But it is a reality - as the father goes so goes the home and so goes the society.

Moses goes on - how to teach diligently - verse 8 - Moses says “You shall bind the commandments as a sign.”  A sign is something visible that commands belief - obedience.  “Bind them as a sign on your hand and as frontlets between your eyes.  Write them on the doorposts of your house and gates.” 

The Hebrews had little scrolls with the Ten Commandments and other passages - made little boxes for them - called phylacteries - tied them on the back of their left hand and bound them on their forehead between their eyes.  They wrote the commandments on their doorposts and gates and the outer entrances of their houses.  They tried to fulfill Moses’ words in a mechanical legalistic way.

But God’s dealing with the what?  The heart.  Obedience from the heart.

Our hands are what we use to work with.  Obey God from the heart when we’re working.  Our eyes are all about our thought life and what we see.  Obey God from the heart with our thoughts - our attitudes - what we allow ourselves to see.  Our doorposts and gates are the avenues of contact with the world around us.  Obey God from the heart in our relationships with our neighbors and friends and others.

Are you seeing Moses is getting at?

When you’re sitting around the house - being a couch potato - in the morning - at night - eating meals - when you go in and when you go out - at the mall - as you’re driving around town - keep these commandments always on your heart.  In every circumstance live loving God - passionately from your heart - obeying God diligently in the everyday circumstances of our lives - and the next generation will learn - by observation and practice - what it means to know God in the everyday circumstances of their lives.

Are we together?

Let’s be careful.  We’re not just talking to parents.  But also to grand-parents and great-grand-parents - and if you look around this place - everyone of us has a stake in the spiritual direction of Generation Next.

Point being:  Don’t abdicate the privilege that God has given you to impact Generation Next - to teach - to mentor - to disciple - to encourage the next generation to know what it means for them to step forward in faith trusting God and living in the awesome abundance of God’s promises.

Hearing this kind of message is either very encouraging or very discouraging.   You’re either sitting there thinking, “I’ve got it nailed.”  Or you may be thinking.  “I’ve been nailed.”  Either its, “I’m on the right track.  I just need to keep going.”  Or, “Well, its too late.” 

Brothers and sisters - no matter where this message finds you it is never too late to start where you are.  Just start.  There’s no need to look back in vain regrets beating yourself up over the past.  Begin now.  That’s God’s grace to you.  The God of the impossible.  He can do wonders - even miracles - when and where you begin.  If you’re willing to step forward in faith trusting Him.

We as 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 - disciples and mentors - that He wants us to be.  To deepen our relationship and love for God.  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 with deep moral issues and at times even life-and-death issues.

_______________________

1. Center for Disease Control May 2010

2. Family News From Dr. James Dobson, May 1998

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®  (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.