The 4Fs - Family (Deuteronomy 6)

This is ERC Sundays, the messages at Emmaus Rd.

Church in DeWitt, Iowa. ERC is a Church of people

striving to grow in Jesus and make him known to others through

our faith, words and actions. Find out more about our church

at emmausrdonline.org. Here's this week's message.

I'll tell you what, if if I had my way, and it would be weird,

but if I had my way, I would have come primarily to the

second service. Because some of, you know, there

was like there was a game that happened last night and it went

kind of late. But I'm thankful for the results

of that game because had the results been different, no

offense to any Packers fans, have the results been different?

Matt Schweitzer was going to harass me throughout the service

by having like a banner and like maybe even stuff on that back TV

that say go, pack, go. And now I don't have to live

with that. So I am praising the Lord today

for a silly thing such as a game.

But it's incredibly helpful for my focus, which always needs

help if you know me anyway. Well, yeah, we are in the second

week of our 4F series and we get to talk about family today,

which I'm really excited about. We look at faith and we look at

family, fitness and finances and we see all these things.

We see all these ways, these different areas that God wants

to grow us, that he wants to teach us, that he wants to

change us and to guide us, and never just for ourselves.

He wants to grow us in all these different ways so that we can

give away the gift that he's given us, whether that's whether

that's our faith or whether that's our understanding of how

we're to take care of God's Templar or whether that's our

money. He calls us to be generous with

that in ways that we can only do if we have the freedom that he's

provided. And so, yeah, all these things

we want to know Jesus and make him known.

And in every single one of these aspects, we have the power to do

that through the Holy Spirit. Now this week we are going to

talk about family just like that.

And we're going to talk about family and and, and, and and

recognize that our faith is the greatest inheritance that we can

give to them far and away. Now here's what I don't mean by

that. I don't mean that you can

forcefully put your God-given faith, which he gave to you

individually. You can't force that upon even

your family. It's not going to work out.

In fact, some people might even call that a crime, like forcing

people to, you know, believe what you believe.

That is problematic. But here's what I mean by that

by giving this gift of faith as an inheritance.

What I mean is that as God has given us this gift of faith,

what we get to do then through the Holy Spirit, you might call

them the fruits of the Spirit, we get to pour all of those

things into the people that we care about the most, whether

that's our time, our energy, our resources, all those things then

get filtered through the gospel. And because those things are

filtered through the gospel, when we start to give that away

to our family, when we start to be very intentional about giving

that to them and, and, and making sure that they're aware

and that we teach them that all these things, man, that like

that makes a substantial impact on not only maybe your kids or

your friends kids, or who knows what that looks like for you.

We know that every family looks different, but at the same time,

we also know that God gives us something to give away, right?

So before we go any further and we get to the text, there's one

thing I do want to say. I want to say that I don't want

us to think about family in the very narrow sense.

Pastor Matt just kind of brought it up, but I want to define this

even a little bit further. Sure, we have a blood relative,

family, people that live with us, all that kind of stuff.

That's important. Don't miss that.

But at the same time, Jesus tells us in Mark 3 and Luke

Luke 8 · chapter mention

chapter 8 that everybody, everybody who hears the word of

the Lord and, and believes it and then comes into that and,

and does those things, they proclaim those things.

That's also our family. That's also our family.

So you have brothers and sisters in Christ who don't look like

you, who don't talk like you, who they, they would eat wildly

different foods. And you all over the planet, you

have this faith family. And the reason why God gives us

that is because Christianity was never meant to be an island.

It was never meant to be something that we just kind of

taken ourselves and we hold onto and we get really quiet.

It's not like that. No, we have an entire world.

We have an entire faith family that we get to lean on and that

we also then get to support, right?

So please don't think about family in the narrow sense.

I want you to more so understand family as much as you can and

the in the global sense if you can.

So here's how here's what this is going to look like.

We're going to be in Deuteronomy chapter 6 and Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6. It tells us about this

inheritance that we're supposed to give away, this faith that

we're supposed to spread and give out in in Lord willing

generation to generation that flows down.

But we recognize that or we should recognize you can't give

away something you don't have. So what does it look like to

develop that personal relationship and that personal

faith with Jesus Christ? Well, the text will get to that.

Second thing is then how then does my faith affect and

influence and, and move through my family?

That's that inheritance piece. And finally we get to see that

there is a faith that leads to eternal life that again, we can

project, we can give, we can teach, we can pour into those

that we care about most. So that's where we're going

today and we will look at Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses one

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

through 15 to hear about that. If you have Bibles, physical

Bibles, you're welcome to grab that.

Or if you again, you download the Bible app, you know, you can

look at that too. There's no no weirdness there.

But it's Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses one through 15.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

And we read this in Jesus name because it is His word.

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 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 the statutes and commandments which

I commanded you all of 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

and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord, the God of

your Father's has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and

honey. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our

God, the Lord is 1 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 you should talk of them when

you sit down in your house, and when you walk by the way, and

when you lie down and when you rise up, 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.

And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that He

swore to your father's, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob,

to give to you, with great and good cities that you did not

build, and houses full of 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,

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.

It is Lord your God. Oh yeah, sorry.

It is the Lord your God. You shall fear him.

You shall serve, and by his name you shall swear.

You shall not go after other gods, the God of the peoples who

are around you. For the Lord your God in your

midst is a jealous God, lest the anger of the Lord be kindled

against you and he destroy you from the face of the earth.

Here in this reading of God's word.

So that was a lot. Let's start with something

simple. Let's start with the concept and

the truth that it does all just start with a relationship.

Now, as we consider what maybe starting a relationship looks

like, I would tell you that like whether you're starting a

friendship or whether you're starting a more of a romantic

interest kind of relationship. The cool thing about those

moments in those early stages is that oftentimes there's there's

an excitement there, isn't there?

So if it's a if it's a new friend, you probably maybe sit

around when you're not near them and you ponder and you're kind

of like, man, I wonder what they're interested in.

I wonder where they would want to like go hang out at.

I like the next time we talk, like, I wonder, yeah, I wonder

what kind of food they like and stuff like that.

And so you're trying to figure all that out, and that's kind of

an exciting process. Well, I would tell you all the

more so if when you're starting to meet and get to know somebody

who might be a potential love interest, think about it.

I'll think about it my way. And here's what this looks like.

It was. It was the better part, I think

of like 26 years ago, 27 years ago.

Gosh, I'm getting old. It's been a while.

It's been a while, but I have not forgotten what it's like to

create and, and to be excited about a new relationship like

that. And So what that might look like

is you constantly think about them even when you're not around

them. It's, it's all these things

floating through your head. And you know, I think we call

that like butterflies if you're being more scientific about it,

or you might call that infatuation.

There's that phase and you know, you've got this weird level of

energy and excitement that there's really no accounting

for. And, you know, somebody brings

up that person and then you get this like, silly look on your

face. Some of you, I can tell it's

been a while since that happened.

Good gravy. But I'm willing to bet it has

happened. It has now that's important.

And and and let me tell you one more thing before I kind of move

on. The best advice that I think

Lisa and I ever got, you know, we've been married more than a

decade or so, I think at this point.

And the best advice we ever got the the pastor used to be here.

He said you need to keep he told me you need to keep dating your

wife. And I went OK, that's we sure

we're married. I don't what do you I don't get

it. But what he meant was it was

important that we continue to pursue each other in a real way

as if we were just first started dating again.

Recall those moments and you may not be able to produce those

moments anymore and that's OK. But recall those moments of

intrigue and excitement, how you were just constantly pursuing

that person, right? It is true and I've I've read

it. I would have to look up the

statistics again. But there is a majority of

women, guys pay attention, there are a majority of women who when

they report about the happiness or whatever of their marriage

and they report they are not happy inside their marriage.

You want to know why their husbands stop pursuing them,

They stop chasing them. And so all of a sudden we've we

we've got marriages that are mundane at best because we're no

longer pursuing each other the way we once did.

Well, let me switch gears here a little bit.

In our relationship with the Lord.

It is the same way, man, when we first meet the grace of Jesus

Christ, we are on fire for the Lord often times.

And we're so excited and we get involved in it and maybe a

community and we're reading this word and we're we're pumped up

about it. But then over time, just like a

human relationship, we tend to go, yeah, God's just kind of a

really decent roommate that I talked to like every once in a

while or I kind of look into every once in a while.

But man, that's not what God wants for us.

And he knows that's not what's best for us.

God is. He's calling us to continue to

pursue that deep, intimate relationship with him.

And here's the thing, when we do that, well, Pastor Matt

previewed us, there's this thing that people have learned.

It's called the power of 4. It means that you're in God's

Word at least four days a week. Now, I'm not going to read all

this stuff to you, but I'll just give you a few highlights here.

So people, they had a 218 to 416% increase in sharing faith

with others, giving charitably, discipling people, memorizing

Scripture, all that stuff. Four days a week or more, 14 to

60% reduction and thinking destructively about themselves

or others, thinking unkindly, feeling spiritually stagnant,

loneliness, bitterness, etcetera.

All those things started going down.

And then a 20 to 6262% reduction in overeating or mishandling

food, extramarital affairs, pornography, lying, etcetera,

etcetera, anger, all that kind of stuff.

You need more. Well, we also found out that

when people are in their Bible four days or more per week,

there is a 62% reduction in drinking to excess, there's a

59% reduction in extramarital affairs and pornography, there's

a 45% reduction in gambling, and so on and so forth.

All of these things are produced, are created, are are

taken away from our lives as we pursue God inside of His Word.

All of these things that's not that's just that's not just

coming up with the things that we can meet a goal of 30,000

daily check insurance in the Bible app.

No, we bring this stuff up because it's real.

It's true. It's statistically and

scientifically backed. By the way, if you want the

source for this, just come talk to me.

I will send you the link source for this material, OK?

We're not just putting up random numbers on the screen to try and

spur you on. That's not the point of it at

all. You see, The thing is, we bring

up things like that and those things are important to help

steer us in the right direction. But I can also tell you that

none of those things will matter.

None of those facts, none of those statistics, none of the

science will matter. If we don't love the Lord, how

do we develop that love relationship?

That's the second part, or maybe the first part of pursuing God.

It's prayer and we, we hear what verse is it?

Verse 6, we hear that the, the word of the Lord in our heart,

how that shifts our, our emotions and our spiritual

being, right? Well, that comes through prayer.

It's probably going to be hard for me to want to pursue God if

I never have a conversation with him, right?

There would be the same thing inside of a human relationship.

If I'm not actively seeking Him, if I'm not talking to Him, if

I'm not, if we're not relating through prayer, all those facts

in the world probably won't motivate me and they won't spur

me on to go seek Him out in His word to pursue Him that way.

Friends, we have to be praying. We have to be talking to our

Father in heaven. Because The thing is, as we talk

to Him, most of us, I would assume as we talk to Him, we are

revealing things in our hearts and in our minds and our souls

that we reveal to nobody else. And you know what that does for

you? You know what that does?

When you open your heart to the Lord like that man, it set you

free because all these burdens that you're carrying, all these,

all these things that you would never tell anybody, man, God

gets in there. He lights up the darkest corners

and he brings us peace and he brings us joy and he brings us

forgiveness. The Bible tells us, and we're

going to hear about it later when we receive the body and

blood of Jesus. But every single sin we confess

to him, he fully and he freely forgives.

There's nothing he won't forgive.

He loves us and he wants to hear from us.

So again, getting to the to the bigger picture here, man.

If we want to give something away, if we want to give a good

inheritance to our family, it we can't give away something we

don't have. And we have this faith through

seeking him out in prayer and seeking him out in his word

every single day. Now, having said all of that,

and I know that was kind of a lot, I was going to apologize,

but I won't because it was good stuff.

Having said all that, if we stayed there and we just said,

hey, guess what? This personal faith of mine,

yippee, it's mine and I'm just going to go take it home and I'm

going to hide it. Well, man, we have broken the

command. Because here's the thing, our

faith is great as it is for us to personally have.

It's not even really for us. Do you realize that?

Yes, it's for personal salvation.

The fact that I believe in Jesus Christ.

I'm leaning on him. We're talking about personal

salvation then. But it was never meant to stay

with just me. It was meant to be given away.

It was meant to be talked about. It is meant to be expressed.

And so God calls us in his Word ambassadors.

And the word command is not too heavy of a word to say.

God commands us to speak about His goodness and to speak about

our faith, to talk about the things that He has done in our

lives. And that's where we start giving

that great inheritance. That's where we start giving

that stuff away. So let's look at that.

If you've talked to me in the last, oh, I don't know, 3 1/2

years and you've said, Pastor Chris, how you doing?

I would probably tell you I'm doing really pretty well.

I'm just really busy. My life is very full now.

I wasn't lying about the first part because usually if I'm not

doing that great, I'll probably let you know and then you'll be

sad. You'll be upset you asked you

back. I wish I didn't ask that dude.

He like told me that he wasn't doing great.

I will be honest with you, so be careful.

But usually I'll say, no, I'm doing great, doing great, but

I'm just really busy. Now here's what I'll tell you

about that. Most of you would probably give

a similar answer, right? At least the second-half of that

answer. You're probably fairly busy

people for the most part. But I don't want to condemn

that. I don't want to say that that's

terrible because we should be pursuing with some amount of

intensity. We should be pursuing those

things that give us life, that provide for our families.

We should be pursuing those things often.

We should be pursuing relationships with people that

are life giving. So that's what a lot of my life

looks like. It's pursuing the thing that

that helps feed my family. It's pursuing my God, and it's

pursuing relationships with people that matter, right?

Stay very full with those things.

So none of those things are inherently bad.

But what that does mean is it means that the slow moments, the

mundane moments, the moments of transition from here to there,

guess what? Those become all the more

important because the rest of life is so stinking full.

Those moments are important and that's what He's telling us.

That's what God is telling us in this.

Let me reread verse 7 to you. It says 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, when you lie down

and when you rise up. Friends, are we taking advantage

of the time that we have? Are we taking advantage of the

time that we have? Because if you haven't figured

it out already, it is finite. It is limited.

Let me paint a picture for you of a typical American Western

family. Let's say it is a family with

kids and you've got mom or mom and dad or some kind of

combination. They're in and, and you got,

you're driving kids somewhere. Or maybe you're driving two or

three of them, three or four different spots.

Who knows? It's just madness and you're

just trying to get through the day.

Well, what happens is what you'll typically see is head in

the tablet, headphones on, and then you've got mom, dad,

whoever, kind of driving. No interactions.

Now you might be thinking to yourself, Pastor Gris, don't

tell me that's wrong because that is the 5 minutes of peace I

get. If you take that tablet or that

phone away from my kid, they're going to be and they're going to

be crying. No, I am going to tell you to

take that junk away, especially in those transitional moments.

Do you know how many transitional moments we have

with people that we don't take advantage of that we get weirdly

distracted in? It happens with adults too.

Maybe you're you're going out to dinner with your spouse or maybe

you're hanging out with a friend.

You're heading somewhere, man. Those transitional moments,

usually it's filling out face down and there's no interaction.

The Lord is telling us that even in these small moments.

So he says when you walk, by the way, yeah, maybe if we modernize

that as we get in the car and move from A to B, but man,

we're, we're missing it. We're missing our opportunities,

we're missing our, we're missing our chance, our limited time

chance to interact with our friends, our family in

meaningful ways. You're missing the chance to, to

share the love of God with them. Now here's the thing.

You hear me say that you're like, we're pastor, you're

talking about God 24/7. That's not, not totally what I'm

saying. I'm not asking you to have a

Bible study prepared for the 12 minute drive to get your kid

from A to B No, I'm, I'm talking about having a real

conversation. You know what if, if, if I am

filled with the, with the power and the love of God through,

through prayer and being in his word every single day, you know

what I'm probably going to do? I'm probably going to lead out a

lot of sentences with man. You know what I'm really

grateful for? You know how I've seen God work

in this week? Those are not hard things to say

that doesn't take any prep work. I just have to be reflective

enough to see that God is moving in my life and then talk about

my life. We do that all the time, but we

just do it with more mundane things like work and school and

gosh, we can do better. And it's not that difficult.

It's not that difficult to say, man, you know who I'm so

grateful for? To look at your kid and say, I'm

so grateful for you. The Lord provided me you.

Maybe it's a little bit more difficult, but if it is, we can

talk to look at your spouse and say, man, I'm so God, I'm so

glad God gave me you. And you're like, oh, that's so

cheesy. I know, but it's great.

It's great. It's great to be able to

acknowledge that person that you used to pursue with some level

of intensity. And maybe that hasn't happened

in a while, but it's great to look at them and remind them.

Guess what? I'm so thankful that God gave me

you. I'm so thankful that He has

blessed us in these ways, that He's given us a family, or he's

given us this house or he's given us these jobs.

I'm so thankful for the way God has moved in our lives.

You don't have to prepare anything for that.

You just say it. You just say it and you will say

that easily if you are dwelling in God's Word and if you are in

prayer with Him, it will. He will move in your heart quite

naturally that way. Now, all that to say, I want us

to pursue relationship with God. I want us to pursue relationship

with our families in a way that really matters.

We can do that when we rise up in the morning.

We can do that when we go to bed.

We can do that in all those transitional moments.

Don't waste the time. Don't let that slip by.

Now I want to also point out one more thing in this, in this

text, in this little section, verses 8:00 and 9:00, it kind of

goes like this. 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. You see what God is calling us

to? He's calling us to to be forward

facing with our faith, to make that obvious.

And again, I'm not talking about knocking on people's doors and

being obnoxious. I would not recommend that.

Usually it's the people with little black tags that do that.

I would not recommend you talk to them either.

That's not a joke. I mean, you giggled.

That's not a joke. Send in my house, I'll talk to

him. But we're, what we're getting

out of this text is we're getting a full view of how God

wants to move in our lives and our hearts.

And he wants to make it obvious for us and he wants us to make

it obvious to everybody around us.

OK, so that's how we build faith into our family.

It starts with our personal faith and then we allow it to

move in, in, in and amongst us during this small and the big

moments. Pursue your family with faith.

Pursue them with faith, by praying for them, by praying

with them, reading God's word with them.

And it doesn't have to be tricky.

I've said this before, but I'll just give you the little pro tip

in my house, what we do every single night when we have

dinner, we just pull up the Bible app verse of the day.

We read the verse of the day, we pray together and we have

dinner. And it's great because that that

verse of the day, that that prayer, it sets us, it sets us

up to have a better conversation when we're together.

Not hard. There you go.

If you take that one thing, today was worth it.

All right, so let's talk about what God has given us.

Well, the short answer to what God has given us inside this

faith is everything. OK?

Verses 10 and 11 here God lays out that everything has already

been prepared for his people. So in the case of Deuteronomy,

what happens is God, God make sure the city is ready for them.

He makes sure the homes are ready for them, that the, that

the, the, the land has already been tilled, that the plants are

already there. Do you realize that those lucky

people didn't have to do anything.

God just provided it all. And you might say, well, that's

not my story because I go to work 40 to 50 or 60 hours a week

and I work really hard. Well, guess what?

Yes, you do, but you still didn't do it.

That's not you Who gave you the mind to think.

The Lord gave you that mind. Who gave you the body and the

hands to work with? Lord gave you that too.

It's all gift. All of it belongs to Him.

So what I'm trying to tell you is what Kristen often tells us

is that it's all his. This world, our bodies, our

lives, our children, our families, all of it is His.

Therefore, God has not withheld any good thing from us.

And that doesn't mean our lives are perfect, but it does mean

that everything necessary for faith that leads to eternal

life, He's given us everything necessary to love and gift faith

as an inheritance for our family.

He gives that to us. All of it He's given as a good

gift to us so that we might give the inheritance that He's won

for us by keeping all of the commands.

Because here's the thing, and we look at the beginning of this

text and God gives, hey, you got to follow the statutes and this

thing that I've commanded you, be sure you do it.

Follow every single command and then it will go well with you.

How are you doing with that? I'm not doing that great with

that, to be honest moment of honesty here they all are.

But going to bring it to the forefront.

A lot of the things that I've recommended that we've talked

about this morning, I have absolutely failed to do.

I have absolutely failed to consistently do those things

with my family. And not just my family in here

in my house. I'm talking about my family, my

church. I failed them.

It means I've failed you. And if I haven't failed you yet,

we're not close enough yet. And as we get close enough,

you'll be like, dude, you messed up.

And I know, I know, and I'm sorry for those things.

I really AM. But here's the thing.

Even in the midst of being sorry that I have failed to do the

commands that God has called me to do, I'm not downtrodden.

I'm not. I'm not shameful.

I don't feel terrible about myself.

Why? Because we have a Lord and

Savior who has done all of these commands.

He has followed all the statues. He has done all of the dues on

our behalf. And the Bible tells us, the

gospel tells us that he imputes his righteousness on us, that

even though we have failed time and time again, he has not

failed. So when we, when we missed the

mark, those are the marks that are on him.

Our missed marks are directly on him.

And as we think about that, as we process that, that reality,

that truth that Jesus Christ has marks on his bodies because we

missed it, man, don't let that, don't let that keep you down.

Don't make, don't let that feel make you feel bad.

No, we are called to let that set us free.

We are called to, weirdly as it may sound to our ears, we are

called to rejoice that the only Son of God shed his, shed his

blood and gave his total body for our righteousness, for our

salvation, for our eternity. That's what he's done for us.

And so man like you can, you can repent, you can repent when you

fail to do these things that we've talked about today, but

you don't stay in sorrow because then the devil wins.

We cannot let him win because we have a king in Jesus Christ who

is greater than any accusation that the that Satan never puts

against you. Man, I hope you know that.

I hope you know that. And friends, we're about to,

we're about to come before his table where we receive the body

and blood of Jesus Christ. If you're not there yet, if the

words I'm saying to you have fallen on deaf ears, then hear

this. The Son of God, Jesus Christ,

fully God, fully man and total perfection, has given his body

and his blood for your life. You have been ransomed at a

great cost. And so as we come to the table,

if that is your faith, if that is your belief that Jesus Christ

is your Lord and Savior, friends, we get to walk out of

here free. Thanks for listening to ERC

Sundays. To support the work God is doing

at Emmaus Rd. Church, visit

emmausrdonline.org/giving.