The Foundation of a Family | Turn Your Heart Toward Home - Deuteronomy 6:1-8 | Matty Finlay

If we have never met before, my name is Maddie, and I have the privilege of serving as a part of the team here on our Bon Elks campus.

And if you've got a Bible, what I'd encourage you to do is open up to Deuteronomy chapter 6 for me, Deuteronomy chapter 6.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

I'm sure most of you, most of us, are familiar with the TV show Family Feud.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

TV show Family Feud?

Awesome.

I love that TV show for a lot of reasons.

One is I think it gives us a great realistic sampling of the United States of America.

And what we do is we go and find the two craziest families that we can find.

We stick them in a game show, and in that family, we find the most eccentric people in that family.

We say, hey, we want to put you on national TV to make an embarrassment of yourself and your family.

Everyone in?

They're like, yeah, we're in.

Sounds like a great idea.

So then here's what happens: they get to a podium just like this, right?

Steve Harvey, who's my guy, I'm a Steve Harvey fan, just gotta just gotta say, you can judge me later.

Steve Harvey brings those eccentric family members up to each side of the podium, and then he asks them a question.

And he says, based on a survey, blah blah blah blah blah, what were the top answers, or whatever the question is?

And they smack this buzzer and then they give an answer.

And if the two answer it, if it's if it's not the top answer, the other one gets the answer, and then once the highest answer is decided between the two, they get to go back to their family and begin to figure out if they can find the rest of the answers.

And what always amazes me is when those answers pop up on that screen and they say something like, How many people out of a hundred or whatever it is decided this is the most common food to eat?

I always sit in my living room and I'm like, there's no way 75 people said that.

Like, what 75 people did you find?

Dude, where did you go?

What neighborhood were you in that 75 people said the most popular food in America is bologna or whatever?

Like you fill in the blank.

I'm like, that's outrageous.

But here's what I know and understand.

If we were to play family food this morning, if I was to be the game show host and pick you up and brought you up here and we did it by a section, and the question I was to ask you is this what is the most important part of the foundation of a healthy family?

What is the most important part of a foundation of a healthy family?

I would bet that the answers we give would be all over the board.

Some may say, gotta eat meals together, dinner time together is a non-negotiable, have to do.

That's the most important part.

Others may say spending time together, weekends away, vacations, taking the trips, doing the things together.

Some may say forgiving one another, others may say the vols or tacos or whatever it may be, but the answers would be broad and vast.

And I would bet that there may actually not be a top answer.

But before we look at our text this morning in Deuteronomy chapter 6, and what the Bible has to say about the foundation that we should build a family on, I want us to remind us of something.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

See, here at Silverdale, we believe that the Bible is the authoritative word of God.

We believe that the Bible, Scripture, God's word to us, has authority in our lives, that is put in place to direct and lead and guide us, that it was written by men under the divine inspiration of God.

We believe that it is totally true and trustworthy, and it reveals the laws and the principles by which God judges his people and then the plan by which he saves us.

We also believe it contains the principles and standards by which we are called to live our lives.

2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17 says this that all scripture is breathed out by God, and it's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God or woman of God may be equipped and complete for every good work.

Now that's important to us to understand today because as we talk about the foundation of a family, I need you to know something.

I need you to know that this is not my idea.

I need you to know and understand that this is not Maddie's quick fix to fixing your family, that this is not Maddie's foolproof guide to raising a family.

That these are the principles God has established in his word to us that if we follow them, if we'll live our lives according to them, we will experience the fullness of life and joy that God has promised us.

So if you would this morning, I'd love to invite you to stand for the reading of God's word.

So all across the room, go ahead and stand.

If you've got your Bible with me, with you, you can follow along with me.

If not, it'll be on the screens behind me.

Deuteronomy chapter 6, beginning in verse 1, says this.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

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, 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.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, 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, you 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 the frontlets between your eyes.

This is God's word to use this morning.

You can go ahead and take a seat.

So Moses starts this passage in Deuteronomy chapter six by saying, Now this is the commandment.

Or your translation may read, may say something along as the lines of, and this is the command.

So we need to know and understand what has come before the beginning of chapter six.

You see, in our English Bibles, there's a chapter break between five and six.

But it was actually most likely one continuous train of thought.

Like if you recall, Moses has been called up by God to the top of Mount Sinai, where God establishes this covenant with Moses and the Israelite people.

Then Moses comes down from Mount Sinai, he gathers all the people of Israel together, and he begins to give them some instruction, and that instruction is what includes the Ten Commandments.

Then at the end of Deuteronomy chapter 5, after he's given the Ten Commandments, we read this in verses 31 through 33.

Deuteronomy 5 · chapter mention

He says this, but you stand here by me, and I will tell you the whole commandment and the statutes and the rules that you shall teach them.

Here's what he's saying.

This was important, but I'm about to teach you some more things that are important.

That you may do them in the land that I'm giving you to possess.

You shall be careful, therefore, to do as the Lord your God has commanded you.

You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.

You shall walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess.

And then Deuteronomy chapter six, verse one starts by saying, 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 were going over to possess it.

So Deuteronomy chapter six is just a continuation of what has begun in Deuteronomy chapter five.

And that's important for us to grasp.

Because I bet most of us that are familiar with church would say, Yeah, Maddie, the Ten Commandments are really important.

Like they're important.

Don't cheat, don't steal, don't kill.

Those things are important.

But many of us live in such a way that the continuation of that in Deuteronomy chapter 6, we've chosen to believe is optional.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

That we've chosen to believe it's not as important as Deuteronomy chapter 5.

Deuteronomy 5 · chapter mention

So if you're taking notes this morning, I want you to write this down for me.

Number one.

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.

The continuation of God's commandments to the Israelite people is that they would be obedient to, that they will prioritize obedience to the commands that God has given them.

Notice what Moses isn't saying, church.

Moses isn't just saying you have to believe these commandments.

Moses isn't saying you have to think that these commandments are a good idea.

Moses isn't just saying you have to fight for the commandments to protect the commandments.

Moses says the commandments were given by God to him so that he would teach them to the Israelite people that they may do them.

That they would keep his statutes all the days of their lives.

At the end of the giving of the law, there was the commandment to obey, not just to believe, but to obey.

One of the things that I have had to grow accustomed to here in the states, especially in this great state of Tennessee, is that every four years things get pretty tense around here.

And as each political party makes their pictures and takes their stance, the Bible and the things in it often become weaponized one way or another.

For example, we often see people battling the legalization of homosexual marriage, all under the premise that it challenges and contradicts the truth of the Bible and the Christian principles on which our country was founded, which, let me say, I believe is a cause well worth fighting for.

However, so often those same people who are outspoken about not discarding or walking away from our Christian values as a country and a people are the same people who will commit adultery, who will sleep with their boyfriend and a girlfriend, who will watch on our feet.

They'll fight for biblical principles to guide our country, but refuse to obey those same principles in their day-to-day lives.

Many of us here in the South are more committed to the tradition of the Bible than we are to living our lives in obedience to what it says.

Let me say that again because I think it's important for us to wrap our minds around it.

I think many of us are more committed to the tradition of the Bible than we are to living our lives in obedience to what it says.

Now, why is that important to us as a family?

Why is that important to you as parents?

If you're taking notes, I want you to write this down for me.

Because family discipleship is often about what is caught and not what is taught.

Family discipleship is often about what's caught and not what's taught.

Most of what our children will learn about God from us will be things they see in us.

There'll be things they watch us do, not necessarily what we will tell them.

Our children will experience us at our best and they will experience us at our worst.

They will know what we value with our lives and what we just say is important.

And what that means for us as parents is that we cannot fake it when it comes to our kids.

We may be able to fool the people sitting around us, we may be able to fool the people we work with, we may be able to fool the people in our small group, but our kids know us.

They know what we value, they know what's important to us, and they know what we just say with our words and when it's hollow.

And as parents, the only shot we have at being able to influence our kids' lives in such a way that they fall madly in love with Jesus and follow him all the days of their lives is for us to fall madly in love with Jesus and to follow him all the days of our lives.

If we as parents are living our lives for Jesus, if we are playing church, if we are just playing the cultural Christian card, the likelihood of our kids doing the same is sky high.

Because often family discipleship is about what's caught and not what's taught.

We can tell them all day long to love God and live a life in obedience to Him.

But if we're not doing the same, they look back at us and just say, You hypocrite.

Now look at the promise Moses gives the Israelite people in verse 3.

Deuteronomy 6.3 says, This here, therefore, O Israel, be careful to do them that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord your God of your fathers has promised you in a land flowing with milk and hungly.

Simply put, to live according to God's words mean you will be blessed.

The reward for living a life that honors God is a blessed life.

Jesus would say something very similar in John chapter 10.

John 10 · chapter mention

Look at this verses 7 through 11.

So Jesus again said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, I'm the door of the sheep.

All who come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.

I'm the door.

If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go out in and out and find pasture.

The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.

However, I, Jesus, came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.

The full life that we want and desire only comes in and through a life lived in obedience to God with Jesus.

Then Moses addresses the Israelites about some of the cultural issues that they would face.

And he tells them after he tells them to prioritize God's command, he tells them that they have to declare their devotion.

Go ahead and write that down, number two.

They have to declare their devotion.

Verse four and five record what has become the key confessions of the Jews, the Jews, it's known as a Shema, which comes from the word to hear, which verse 4 begins with it.

Look at again with me, verses 4 through 6.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all your soul, and all your might.

And these words that I have commanded you today shall be on your heart.

It's complete devotion to.

He's addressing the cultural issues of all these other types of gods that are going to be set up.

Moses is addressing the Israelite people and he's saying, There can be no other God but the one true God, and you've got to declare all of your devotion to him.

You cannot be half in and half out.

There is no, I love this God Monday through Wednesday, but this God Thursday through Sunday.

You're all in or you're all out.

And throughout the book of Deuteronomy, the Israelite people are addressed six different times with the words, hear, O Israel.

It's a constant reminder that the Israelite people, God's people, are a people who are called by God to hear the word of God.

That today we followers of Jesus, the people of God, are called to be in a relationship with God.

That we are called to be recipients of God's word to us, that we are to hear the truth of God's word and to respond to it inside of the context of a personal relationship with Him.

God has called and is calling His people into a deeply personal relationship with Him.

So how does that apply to us today?

How do we declare our devotion to God?

Well, we know that through Adam in the garden, sin entered into our human nature.

And from that point forward, sin has been ingrained in all of us, and that sin separated us from God.

And the only way that we can be made right with God, the only way that we can be in a right relationship with God is for that sin debt to be paid.

The Israelites had a whole system that was created and designed to offer sacrifices that would pay their sin debt on a consistent basis.

But nothing, no sacrifice they could ever make would be enough to pay for sin for all sin forever.

So God sent his son Jesus.

Jesus lived a perfect life, willingly gave his life.

Jesus was innocent of sin, but willingly hung on a cross so that our sin debt could be paid.

Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice that paid for sin once and for all.

He took on our sin, gave us his righteousness so that we could be forgiven by God and be in a relationship with him.

He was the sacrifice that paid for our sins once and for all.

And John 3.16 says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

So verses four through six have context and meaning for us today.

Because when we hear the word of God, when we hear the truth of God, when we can wrap our minds around the gravity of the sacrifice of Jesus, that God gave his son for us to die on the cross in our place for our sin so that we can have right standing with him, how could we do anything other than declare true devotion to God?

When we know and understand that God would give his perfect and innocent son in our place so that this sinful and broken manner can be made right within.

When we know and understand that God would love us so much that we gave us the only son that could die in our place, when we grasp the reality of the way God loves us.

How could we want to do anything other than declare and complete devotion to God and to love him with a lot of heart, with a lot of soul, with a law of mind?

That's what Moses is telling the Israelite people understand who God is and declare the devotion to the church.

We have to understand who God is, and we say it in his word over and over again.

And the ask is that we would declare a devotion to God, that it's not God and our job, it's not Jesus and our ministry, it's not Jesus and our finances, it's not Jesus and a nice house, it's not Jesus and our kids, it's not Jesus and the vault, it's not Jesus and anything, it's Jesus and Jesus alone that needs and deserves all of our devotion.

Now, why is that important to a family?

Again, because family discipleship is often about what's called and not what's taught.

Our children know where our devotion lies without us ever having to tell them.

Number three, that we have to be committed to family discipleship.

We have to be committed to family discipleship.

Look at verses seven through eight.

It says this, You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you 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 the frontlets between your eyes.

Moses tells the Israelite people that they are teach to teach the commands of God with diligence, to talk about them often, that the word of God should be a conversation topic in our homes and as we go about our days, that they should have the word of God and the truth of his word visible, that the word of God and the truths contained in it should be a consistent theme in our daily rhythms of our family.

While much of discipleship is about what is caught and not taught, parents, can I just remind us we cannot neglect to teach our kids the word of God?

We have to model what it looks like to live lives devoted to God, and we have to teach them what it looks like to know and understand and love God and His Word.

It's not one or the other, it has to be both.

Every source of media, every day, they're hearing messages from these forms of media TV, social media, school.

Books, friends, teachers, you name it, that are all teaching and that God's word is not true and it is not to be believed.

And it is our responsibility to keep the truth of God's word in front of our families to consistently confront the lies of the world that seeks to shape who our children will become.

And as lovingly as I can say this to us this morning, parents, we cannot hand the discipleship responsibility of our kids off to a school or a church or a youth pastor or a children's pastor or their grandparents.

The responsibility of discipling our kids is a parent's responsibility.

It is our responsibility.

We cannot allow it to be handed off to somebody else.

I think so many of us, myself included, when we think about the discipleship of our children, being intentional with that can so often unintentionally take a backseat.

I mean, think about this with me for just a second.

We put so much time and effort and thought into planning for the physical and intellectual needs of our children.

I remember before Tab and I bought the house that we're in right now, we were basing the decision on where we were gonna move our family and raise our family based on what school zone they would be in.

It was that big of a deal.

Like we were gonna make a decision, forget everything else, what school are they gonna go to?

Because that's where we're gonna live.

We prioritize what school we'll go to.

We prepare meals for our kids, we clothe them, we make sure they have a warm bed, we teach them the dangers of the world from how to cross a road to a hot stove, we establish rules and consequences for disobedience and disrespect, we establish rewards for right behavior, and people would be quick to call the authorities if we didn't do all of those things.

So, in the midst of all of that, in the midst of figuring out all of that every day, allowing discipleship, Christian discipleship of our children to take a back seat isn't such a big deal, right?

Like there's a lot going on.

I mean, ask any mom in the room, just keeping a kid alive is a full-time job.

But church, if we are challenged by anything in Deuteronomy chapter 6, can we let it be to realign our priorities?

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

We need to acknowledge, church, that the spiritual feeding and covering of our families needs to be as vital to our families as their physical feeding and covering.

We need to begin with the end in mind.

The goal of the Christian family is not to raise kind and successful human beings.

The goal is not the nice job and the good college and the nice car and the big house with 2.5 children and a white picket fence.

The American dream is not the goal of a Christian family.

The goal of a Christian family, the goal of family discipleship is to raise children who will love God, love people, and go wherever God sends them to tell others about the love that He has for them.

That's the goal.

And what that means is that family discipleship is both about teaching and modeling for our families what that looks like.

1 Timothy 4 8 would say this for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way as it holds the promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

We have to prioritize God's commands by being obedient to the truth of his word.

We have to declare our devotion to God by understanding the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the cross and living our lives in honor of that sacrifice.

We have to be committed to family discipleship by putting and keeping God's word in front of our family and central to its rhythms.

But parents, can I tell you something this morning?

None of that is possible outside of you having a personal relationship with Jesus.

You cannot model something you do not have.

So can I encourage you this morning?

Maybe that's where you find yourself.

Maybe you don't have a relationship with Jesus.

Maybe you have hopes and dreams and desires for your families, and maybe that's why you're here.

I mean a lot of parents that tell me when we showed up at church because we want our kids to know Jesus.

And while I love the heart behind that, can I just be honest with you?

Showing up here one hour a week does not counteract what they learn every day in your home.

We love that you're here.

We want you here.

We think this is the best place for you to be.

But what you teach them inside the context of your home will always trump what we teach them here.

Family discipleship begins with you having a personal relationship with Jesus.

But I want to share with you the beauty of the church.

See, while we passionately believe that discipleship is the primary responsibility of the parent, we are equally as passionate about believing that it's our responsibility as the church to partner with you in that.

It is literally one of the core values of both our kids' ministry and our student ministry that we're gonna partner with parents, that we're gonna come alongside you as you disciple your children.

We don't presume to take that responsibility from you.

We believe that it's yours, but we want to partner with you in that journey and on that journey.

So this morning, what we want to do is wanna hand you a couple really practical tools that as you walk out this morning, maybe if you find yourself in a place where you would say, We don't really know what discipleship looks like in our home, we've thought about it, we've tried it, we don't know how to do it.

We want to give you a couple of tools.

The first is this gospel plan for me, a family Bible study guide.

Our kids team have written this for you.

And what we would ask is if you have preschoolers, older preschoolers, elementary school kids, and you would say, Again, like we're not really doing family discipleship.

We've tried, I don't really know what that looks like.

On the high top tables out in the atrium, would you go and grab one of these and would you take it home?

There are five lessons in this.

You can do it over the course of a week and five days, you could do them over five weeks, you could do them over five months if you really chose to.

But we've tried to make this as easy for you as possible.

We've tried to make this as simple to step into discipling your family as possible.

It literally says, say this, read this, ask this question, say this.

Like and we giggle and we chuckle, but it's that important to us.

We want to take as many questions out of it for you as possible.

Because we genuinely believe if you will begin to do this with your family, it will change your children's lives.

If you've got students, middle school, high school, even college students, and those same high-top spaces, we've got this summer soaps guide.

And on the back of it, every week there are five readings that you can do each week.

And our pastors talked about a soap Bible study lots of times before.

This is really one of the simplest ways for you to begin to learn how to read the Bible, for you to walk your kids, your teenagers, through this.

The S stands for read the passage, the scripture.

So you're just gonna read it and then retell it in your own words.

The O stands for observe.

Just gonna highlight what did I notice?

What did it say about God?

What did it say about Jesus?

What does it say about people?

Then A, we're gonna talk about the application.

Is there a sin to confess, a promise to claim, an attitude to change?

The P stands for pray, and the S stands for share.

It's one of the simplest and easiest ways that you can sit down with a teenager and say, Hey, let's start reading God's word together.

You don't have to be a Bible scholar, you don't have to have all the answers to all of the questions.

All we're gonna do is make observations about what we read in God's Word.

Our student ministry on Sunday mornings in their small groups, do this with our students.

Because it gets them in a group, opening their Bible and reading God's Word.

And we want that for you too.

Listen, I recognize that it's easy to stand here and talk about family discipleship, and some of us may say, man, man, it just feels hard, feels clunky, it feels awkward.

We don't have the time.

Listen, I get it.

I get it.

At our home in the evenings, right before we go to bed, we read the Bible with our boys, and can I can't tell you, as your pastor, how often it has been for me to allow convenience to replace disciple with my kids.

And for me in my house, it looks like, hey, babe, it's already way past bedtime.

Like, let's just skip reading the Bible tonight, we'll send them to bed.

And I'm so grateful for a wife who looks back at me and says, Hey, we're not gonna do that.

If we need to make sure they go to bed on time, then we need to stop doing X, Y, and Z earlier in the evening.

Because what this is a non-negotiable.

I get it.

Sometimes it's easy to allow convenient.

We've got sports, you've got all the things going on, and it's easy to set this thing aside because you've got to get the uniform ready and the lunch packed and all of the things.

But we have to make time to disciple our families.

And yes, it's gonna feel clunky, and yes, it's gonna feel uncomfortable, and yes, you're gonna be sweating, and yes, your face is gonna get red, and you're gonna ask questions that you don't know the answers to, and there's gonna be words that get said, and you're like, oh my goodness, did it just say that?

How do I explain that?

It's all good.

We all live through that, we all survive through that, we all fumble through certain stories and how to tell our kids what that means.

But none of that is an excuse for not prioritizing discipling your family.

And we pray for this.

Father, thank you so much for the truth of your word this morning.

God, we are grateful and thankful for the calling that you have given us as parents to disciple our children.

So, God, we pray and ask, even this morning, God, that you would convict us, God, that you would lead us to that place where we step into discipleship of our families.

God, we pray and ask, King Jesus, that you would encourage us in the moments where it feels difficult and awkward and uncomfortable, God, that you would cause us to step into that and not run from that.

God, that we would not hand off the discipleship of our children to anybody else.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.