DEUT 6
GOD’S MANUAL FOR FAMILY LIVING
Last Week Wesley gave you a glimpse of how God’s manual for family living from Deuteronomy 4 was relied on in his home. He told you how his family prayed together regularly both in the morning and before going to bed at night and how God’s Word was the guiding principle for all they did.
My family wasn’t all that different. We too had family worship every morning but not in the evenings. My parents were conscientious, hard-working farmers who practiced their faith and put effort in teaching their four children how to live. I never remember missing Sunday school or church services. My dad made a strong impression on me by the way he lived and by what he said. My parents supported what was preached on Sunday mornings and I often remember them affirming the words of the preacher on our way home after church.
Modesty in dress and the way his three daughters presented themselves was important to my dad. He didn’t want us to be like the world nor to be objects of temptation. My parents were strict but loving and their financial sacrifice for a Christian high school education and their prayers on my behalf helped me receive a strong faith foundation.
God’s Word is true, I’ve discovered. The outcome of obedience is worth all the effort it takes. Deuteronomy 6 ends with these words, “Then the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God for our lasting good, so as to keep us alive as is now the case. “If we diligently observe this entire commandment before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, we will be in the right.”
Chapter 6, our text for today, is about how to use God’s manual so that His instructions get passed on to the children and to the grandchildren for their good.
Two weeks ago most of you know I had the opportunity to be with two of our grandchildren in CA. God provided that wonderful opportunity as he has provided for us again and again. One of the thoughts that came from studying Deuteronomy, as I made the trip was here’s an opportunity for me to be as Grandmother Eunice was to Timothy in the Bible and to practice what I preach. So I prayed for ways to creatively exert a godly influence on our grandchildren during the seven days I would be with them as Deuteronomy 6 instructs. Well, it was a delight to see the way they responded. We sang Bible songs from 2 CDs. The song “Rise and Shine” would spontaneously come out of our four year old granddaughter’s mouth while we were riding in the car or playing at the playground. We watched Mother Goose Christian nursery songs on video and again I’d hear her start singing on her own one of the songs from the video, “God gave us a Special book the Bible is its Name.” We took time for morning and evening prayer and I read to them from a Children’s Picture Bible for story time in the evening.
Now when I think about their expressions of delight, and their questions and responses when we sang and they danced and when we read and prayed together I give thanks for the special opportunity I had to visit them.
Then in the same week Wesley and I had another opportunity to practice what we preach when our other two grandchildren from Cleveland came to be with us for two days. Deuteronomy has helped us to see that we, as grandparents need to do what we can to encourage our children to put Christ first in their homes and then supplement their efforts to train their children as God instructs in Scripture. It’s our earnest desire that the faith we received from our parents and grandparents will be passed on to our children and to their children so that the life-sustaining faith will be kept alive.
So first, to the grandparents here today, I want to encourage you to look for ways to help your grandchildren establish a faith foundation on which they can build their lives for Christ. Some of you bring your grandchildren to church; you are to be commended. Take time to share your story of how you came to faith and what it means to be obedient to Christ. Above all find occasions when you can pray with your grandchildren to help them learn how important prayer is and pray for your extended family daily. Lift up their specific struggles and joys as they relate them to you. Let none of us as grandparents sit back idly and hope our children and grandchildren will turn out ok or that they will somehow survive on their own. They need our godly input and prayerful support.
Now I want to go back to the heart of Deut 6, this very short passage of five verses, (4-8) to hear how God wants his manual for family living to be used. To prepare us to hear his instruction we need to first understand the tone of God’s words.
God’s heart is best conveyed in 5:1 where it begins, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances that I am addressing to you today; you shall learn them and observe them diligently.” God’s instructions are not mere suggestions that we are given the liberty to take or leave at will and it doesn’t matter to him. He gave us his laws that follow in chapter 5 that are called statutes and ordinances. The whole book of Deuteronomy is filled with passionate pleas with the call, “Hear O Israel!”
We hear the seriousness of God’s words again at the end of the chapter, “You must therefore be careful to do as the LORD your God has commanded you; you shall not turn to the right or to the left. You must follow exactly the path that the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live…” (v. 32).
The second major section of Deuteronomy ends at chapter 26 with a final appeal, “This very day the LORD your God is commanding you to observe these statutes and ordinances; so observe them diligently with all your heart and with all your soul.” (26:16).
God is dead serious about our obedience but He also makes clear that blessings follow obedience. Every command of God contains a promise. In Deuteronomy the commands and promises of God are often coupled together as in this final appeal. “Today the LORD has obtained your agreement; to be his treasured people as he promised you and to keep his commandments; for him to set you high above all nations that he has made in praise and in fame and in honor; and for you to be a people holy to the LORD your God as he promised.” (26:18, 19.)
Verse 4 begins with God’s appeal, ‘Hear, O Israel.” In other words, “Listen up,” or “pay attention,” Then Moses speaks these powerful words, “The Lord is our God the LORD alone.”
God does not require his people to carry out the commands of some capricious, unknown god; He is the LORD, our God, loving and caring in nature. He is our God who graciously reveals himself and creates a manual of commands for our protection. He is LORD alone. Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God…” (Jn 17:3).
After putting God in his rightful place as the supreme authority, the instruction that follows is a simple-to-understand, two- part command. First, it is directed to parents, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.” (vvs 4-6)
Parents can’t teach effectively what they don’t live. Therefore, parents need to make sure that they are modeling what it means to love God with their total being.
I ask you parents, what do your children see in you? Do they know without a doubt that you love God with your whole heart, soul and might? Can they see that you regard worship as your loving, joyful response to God and nothing will keep you from setting aside time for worship on the Lord’s day?
Just this week I spoke with a parent whose son was standing in our presence. The parent said, I’ve tried to get him to go to Sunday school and church. I’ve reminded him on Saturday night, and I’ve done this and that to get him back to church again but he won’t go any more. I had to say to her, it would be so much more effective if you as parents made an effort yourselves to get up on Sunday morning and model what it means to come to church with your children. You know a whole lot more is caught than taught, as the saying goes.
God’s instructs parents first of all to set the example by practicing what they preach. Jesus said that the first and greatest commandment is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” That’s what children need to see, mom and dad truly loving the Lord and loving to do his commandments. That’s the first part of this short manual—parents let it begin with you, practice what you preach because children learn best by example.
The second part of this brief manual from verses 7-9 presents a series of creative ways to put God’s laws, or his statutes and ordinances into the hearts and practice of their children. They are “Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (vv7-9).
Practical advice, isn’t it? What a difference it would make in our nation if parents all across this land would put their energy into carrying out these creative ways of planting Scripture in the hearts of their children.
A translation and interpretation of the instructions in Deuteronomy 6 for 2003 might read:
1. Recite the 10 commandments to your children; memorize them.
2. Talk about their meaning at home around the table when you eat, before you go to bed, and when you are traveling.
3. Talk about the consequences of breaking God’s commandments as you encounter incidents in the news. Make it clear to your children that one cannot break any of God’s commands without detrimental consequences.
4. Find Scripture and cross jewelry to give to your children as gifts. (I remember a member of this church showing me her 10 commandment bracelet. It was very attractive and provided a regular reminder of God’s commandments.)
5. Put Scripture magnets on your refrigerator or daily Scripture cards or a tear-off Scripture calendar on the table for daily use. (We received such a calendar as a Christmas gift and use it daily.
6. Hang Christian pictures and Scripture mottos on your walls to serve as a visual tool for teaching.
Two weeks ago when I was in Sunnyvale, our daughter and I spent Sunday afternoon walking in the neighborhood and we went into four houses where the realtors were holding open house. At one of the houses the wife was a teacher. She had used a large stencil and all along the dining room and family room she stenciled the phrase, “Imagining is everything” probably about a half dozen times in the two main rooms. Everyone who came to this house saw the phrase, “Imagining is everything.” It was food for thought the mother of the house passed on to their guests. I had to think, how effective it would be if parents stenciled on their walls, “Loving God is everything” or the verse “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” or “As for me and my House we will serve the Lord.” What a powerful message it would give to the children of the home as well as to every guest that walked into that home.
Today is Mother’s Day so I want to challenge you mothers since you are the primary interior decorators of your houses. Go home today and take an inventory of your interior decorations. Are there any pictures or Scripture mottos on your walls that God can use to direct the thoughts of your children, or your grandchildren or the guests that enter your home? Or does everything on your walls and shelves simply make a fashion statement that calls attention to Martha Steward rather than to Jesus Christ?
Truly, God has given us a powerful mini manual for family living in Deuteronomy 6. I challenge you to take these instructions and creatively adapt them so that you and your family will make God’s Word and His commands first place in your lives.
May God give each one of us here today the desire to love the Lord our God with our total being and then find ways to help others, especially those who are part of our family also want to love and obey Him too.
