Sermon Transcript:

Now I want to welcome Pastor Joe Andrews, as he gives us our lesson for today.

Well, thank you so very much. It's awesome to be here with you. My name is Joe Andrews. I'm from First Baptist Church in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I know, I know. Don't hate me because I come from a really awesome city. Okay,

it's okay. Your city isn't quite as good as mine. You guys can go vacation in Las Cruces. That's cool. We'll have you no but it's awesome to be here with you guys. Listen, if it's your first time here at the church, I want to say you and I have something in common. It's my first time here as well. I'm so excited that I get to bring the message today. And what I hope more than anything, is that God would use his Word in your life in such a way that your life has changed and your family is changed. That's what I really want. I wanted to start I know you just don't really know much about who I am, so I just kind of wanted to introduce myself to you for just a second. I have, I've, I've been to the top of Mount Everest, one time I summited that. One time I've been in space. Also one time, which is pretty cool, and those are both lies. I figured, because you don't know me, I could kind of just say whatever I want to up here, I've actually been on staff at First Baptist Church for about the last nine years, and I love it. I'm enjoying it. I love preaching. I don't get to do it every Sunday, but when I do get to do it, it's one of my favorite things. I'm also I was also a missionary in Argentina. My whole family was there with me. Two of my kids were born there. My wife and I lived there for about seven years, and a year before that, we were in Costa Rica. So I can actually talk like an Argentine. I could say, oh, la Chico VA Mira. I say, cuanto tiempo que nos visto. So I can talk like in Argentine. So I think that's pretty cool. But I want to introduce you to my family. This is my family. This is the latest picture. This is only like, like, two weeks old, I think. So that's me in the middle there, kind of that's my wife that would be on my left, on your right, and her name is Leanne. We've been together for 20 years. How cool is that? 20 years? I mean,

it's an act of God that he got her to stay with me for that long.

The right next to me, that's my son, Parker. He's 17 years old. On the other side, you have London. She's 15 years old. You have Jack there in the middle. He is he's 12 years old, almost 13. Hallie is nine, and that's my family. We I love my family.

I've been thinking a lot about family lately, and which was really cool, because Larry, I don't know how tall he thought I was. I think he thought I was pretty short here,

but he did ask me to come and teach on Family Day. And I just in my own personal life, I've been thinking a lot about my family. And the reason that I've been thinking a lot about my family is because, as you can see in that picture, I don't have a lot of time left with all of my kids. Alright? Parker is 17, all right. He's a junior right now, which is so cool. Which means I have another year and a half with him in the house. But this is caused me to start thinking I only have a year and a half with him. I have the rest of his junior year and his whole senior year, and then he's off to do what kids do when they grow up. A year and a half left my daughter. I have three and a half years with her left in the house before she leaves and does her things. Little Jack there, my youngest son. I have five and a half years with him before I send him on his way, and then Hallie. I have eight and a half years left with Hallie. But this has really got me thinking. It's got me thinking, have I trained my kids

the way they need to be trained, so that in about a year and a half, I can send my oldest outside of the house, and not just as an adult, like, have I just trained him to be an adult? Have I trained him to be a follower of Jesus Christ? Like I need to have trained him,

and even just the regular, normal things that you and I do as adults out there that kids really don't have to worry about. Have I trained him in all of those things? What about my daughter? What about my youngest son and what about my youngest daughter? Have I trained them like I need to be training them? So I've been thinking a lot about that, which is why I've titled today's message time.

A train. It is time to train your kids right now.

I've been married. I told you for 20 years. Do you know how much training it took my wife to get me to stay with her for 20 years? I'm just kidding. I've been training her to stay with me.

I got a new little puppy for the kids for Christmas. It's a Rhodesian Ridgeback. I don't know if you've ever seen one of those dogs. They have a whole ridge up their back where the hair grows up their back instead of down their back. It's really cool. He is ginormous. I have been training him a lot lately, and we've had him three weeks tomorrow, and I've told the kids, this is your dog, not my dog. I'm not going to be the one doing everything. Well, then all three, well, three, my oldest kids, they left to camp or they went to retreat. They're there right now, and they left me to take care of this dog. So I, for the past two nights, have had to get up like three or four times to take this dog out so he doesn't pee in my bed. He He pees quicker than you could ever imagine, all right, I mean, really fast. If we were in a race and he was right there, right between my legs, and I was right here, and the goal was to just pick him up before he finishes peeing, I would lose every time he's so fast, I have to train him over and over and over so that he gets it. We're going to be looking at a passage today in Scripture that has a lot to do with training. We're going to be in Deuteronomy. You need to know a few things about Deuteronomy before we get there. One of the things that you need to know about Deuteronomy is that it was written by Moses, alright, and it was written by Moses about 40 or, let's just say, the events that happen in the book of Deuteronomy happened about 40 years after Moses and after God, through Moses, has set his people free from slavery in Egypt. And it's really three speeches, if you can divide the whole book into three speeches of Moses. So God tells Moses, I want you to gather all of the people together, and I want you to bring them here, and I want you to tell them these things. And so we're going to look at some of what Moses said to those people. Really. What he's trying to do is he's trying to get them from the wilderness that they're in into the land of promise that God said He would take them to alright. They should have been there 40 years earlier. They should have left Egypt, and it should have taken him a few weeks to get to the promised land. But they didn't trust God.

And as a punishment, God has them in the wilderness for 40 years. He lets an entire generation pass away. And he says those ones they they didn't trust me, they didn't follow me like they needed to. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to work with a new bunch of people. So I'm going to work with the next generation, and that generation is going to go into the land that I promised the previous generation. So Moses gathers all of those Israelites together. We don't know exactly how many think a really big number think maybe a million, maybe a few less. It's a lot of people. He gathers all these people, and what he wants to tell them is, here is how you're going to have success as you go into the land that God has promised you

success. He knew wasn't just going to be a one generation thing. He knew that success was going to be a multi generation task. It was going to take parents training their children, who would then train their children, who would then train their children, and if any of that little chain link is broken, then they wouldn't have success in the land that God had promised them. I guess, really, before we get into everything, really, what I want you to see if you're going to take home one thing from this message today, it's this, you are always training your children as parents. You're always training your children. Don't ever forget that I didn't say you should be always training your your your kids. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying you are always training your kids, and you have to do it, and you have to do it right.

Some of you are training your children to be UTEP minor fans. What is wrong with you?

Look, I didn't come from Las Cruces just to come over here and judge you. I will leave that to the Lord. There's a special place for you. If you're training your kids to be fans of the UTEP minors, there's, there's this idea of passive training, and there's this idea of active training. In active training, what you're doing is you're, you're actually purposefully training your kids.

Yes, all right, if you, if you just take a little stroll, or get in your car and take a little drive, go buy a few parks, you're going to see parents out there with their kids training them to do different things. Maybe it's riding riding a bike. You'll probably see a dad out there teaching his son some sport and trying to help him get better. That's all active training. Or maybe you're at mom and you're a stay at home mom, but because you're home schooling your kids, that is active training. But there's another type of training, and that training is passive. Passive training means that your kids are watching every single thing that you do,

and you are training them to do what you do, whether you like it or not. Let that sink in for a second. Your kids, they're always watching you. Some of you are training your children to yell at your spouse. Why? Because that's what your kids are seeing. Some of you are training the opposite, though. Some of you are training your kids that parents that spend time with their kids isn't really an important thing. Why? Because they see you not spending much time with them.

Some of you are training your kids that training your kids isn't very important because you're not training your kids actively. You're just training them by letting them watch the things that you do. So as we get into this text, I want you to picture this huge multitude in front of Moses, and he's ready to tell them all these things, but he begins, and he's speaking to parents, alright? So the very first thing that you need to see as we get in this passage is that, as parents, you need God's words on your heart. Let me say that again, as parents, you need God's words on your heart. That's what Moses says to all of those parents there that are there to hear what Moses has to say. What does success look like when we get into the promised land. Moses tells them, as parents, you need God's words on your heart. So let's go to Deuteronomy chapter six. We're going to start in verse six. Now, if you're following verse wise, we're going to be all over the place. We're going to be in verses four through nine. But we're not just going to go in a nice little kind of linear fashion. I'm going to jump over a little bit, and you'll see why I do that as we get into it. But I want you to look at this and these words that I command you today, remember, Moses is speaking to the people,

but it's really God speaking through Moses to the people, and these words that I command you today, shall be on your heart. The word for heart in the Hebrew language isn't like what we think of the heart. We think of the heart as like the seat of emotions. Like this is exactly what I feel, and it's deep in my heart, and things like that. That's not how they thought of it. They thought of it more like we think of the mind,

that the words of God should always be on your mind. They should be what you're thinking about. Think of something that you have in your long term memory. All right, that's kind of what Moses is trying to get across to these Israelites. The words of the Lord should be in your long term memory. What does that mean? You're not just going to forget. It's not going to go in one ear and out the other. It's going to become part of who you are, because it is part of your heart.

Can you go back to that last verse a little bit more? So Moses says, I'm going to command you all of these words of the Lord, and they have to be on your heart. I want them to be a part of you. I want them to influence every single thing that you do. Now here's the interesting thing, the Israelites at first, took that at face value, and they knew that it wasn't literal. Alright? If you thought that was literal, some of you would be like, Okay, so when I get out of church today, I need to go get a tattoo right above my heart of God's words. Alright, that would be the literal way to take that. They knew that that wasn't the case. It meant to take God's word and make it a part of who they were. Now, that's awesome, but they didn't continue with that thinking through the rest of the verses that we're going to be looking at. In fact, they started thinking everything was literal. And because they started thinking it was literal, they started thinking that this is just a checklist from God,

and if I can just check the box, then I'm okay with God. All right, I want to take you to the next verses, actually verse eight, and then we'll look at nine in just second. It says you shall bind them. Bind what the words of God. Okay, you shall bind the words of God as a sign on your hand. Now they didn't take this to be figurative. They took it to be literal. So do you know what? In time, the Israelites did, and even in.

Jesus's time, which is like 1300 years later. They took this so literally, so literally that they would actually take verses from Scripture. They would write them on a tiny bit of paper. They would fold those up. They would put them in like a little leather pouch or a tiny box, and they would put that on their arm, which is really close to their hand, they would wrap it with leather, and there they would have the words of God on their hand.

And God is like, okay, it's not a checklist, guys. It wasn't like, Okay, you did that. You wrapped that around your arm. You have my words, and they're near your hand, and we're good now

the hands represent what those people would go and do. What God is saying is it's not so important that you have written my words on your hands. What's most important is that everything you do be influenced

by my words. And so your hands which go and do all of the things that you're going to do, everything they do should be influenced by my word. It wasn't just a checklist, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. Everybody's like, cool frontlets. What are those? All right, kind of the same thing. Okay? The idea is the same. They would write God's words. They would put them in a little pouch, and they would literally strap it to their heads, and they're like, Okay, check mark number two. Well, what did they think about the mind? Well, they thought about the mind. What we think about the heart? We talked about that earlier in reverse. Now, they thought that the mind was the seat of the emotions, everything you feel, everything you're passionate about, what is God saying? Don't strap words to your head.

Let my words influence all of your emotions, the deepest part of you, all of your passions, let my word influence that. Then

we get to the next verse. Go back to verse nine. You shall write them on the door posts of your house. All right. So they're thinking, Alright, this is literal. We're just going to do it, and we're going to make a check mark, and we're good with God. So they go to their house, they write the words of the Lord on the doorpost, and they think everything is good, except they missed the point.

They missed the point that the doorpost or the entrance and the exit to the home. As you enter the home, that place should be influenced by God's words. Everything that happens in there should be influenced by God's words. Upon leaving the house, they should be able to see those verses not as a check mark, but as a reminder that as I leave this house, where everything is influenced by God's word, so my life outside of the house should be influenced by God's words.

And on your gates, you think gates, you kind of go back. You kind of like, take this word, these words, remember these people, they don't even have gates. Okay? They don't even have homes. They're in the wilderness. Still, all of this is in front of them. So when you think gates, don't think of like a little front yard with a little picket fence with a nice little gate. Think city gates, okay,

so God, through Moses tells these people, you need to have these words written on your city gates. Was it just a checklist? So they're like, Okay, we're good. We don't have to worry about that anymore. No, it was so much more than that upon entering that city, it should have been understood that this city is influenced by God's words. As you exit that city, you should see that on the city gates, and you should think, I'm going to carry on my business being influenced by God's words inside the city and outside of the city as I leave.

Do you see that they missed the point? How often do we miss the point? So Moses is there. He's got everybody gathered around, and the next thing he wants to tell them is that they need to teach

and they need to train and talk about God's word all the time to their kids. All right? Moses says, Alright, here's what you need to do with your kids now, now that you have God's words on your heart, not literally, but as a part of your life, letting them influence you in every single thing that you do now, you need to take the words of God that are on your heart. Okay? Israelites Moses is saying and you need to talk about those words of God. You need to train your children in those words of God so that they will KNOW and FOLLOW Him. And you need to do it all the time. Let's look at verse seven together.

You shall teach them diligently to your children. So he just said, you need to have these on your heart. He talked about the things on the hands, the things on the head, things on the doorpost, things on the gate, because he wants that to be infiltrating their lives. So he says, Now that you have it on your heart, teach those words of God diligently to your children,

and you shall talk of them. And this is what I love. Listen to what Moses. Listen to what God says to the Israelites through Moses about when they should teach God's word to their children. Listen to this is so awesome when you sit in your house. So anytime that they were in their house in the new promised land, they were supposed to be teaching and talking about God's words with their children. Oh, don't forget. And when you walk, by the way, so when you're walking, also, don't forget to train your children

to know and follow the Lord that their lives should be influenced by God's words. Oh, and when you lie down. So when you're laying down, make sure that you're teaching and you're training your kids. Oh, and Moses says to the Israelites one other thing, when you rise, when you get up, when you lay down, when you're walking, when you're sitting.

Do you know what Moses is trying to get at? Do you know what God is trying to get at? He's trying to say, there is never a time when you're not to be teaching and training and talking to your kids about the words of God. To put it another way, you are to always be teaching and training your kids to be influenced by God's words

in their lives, and hopefully you're training them to do that as they look at you. And hopefully you're actively training them to do that as well. So what is it now that these people, all of these Israelites, are supposed to teach to their children? Well, you could say, well, the the whole Bible. Well, okay, sure, yes, but in context, it's just two little verses. We'll get there in a second. But here's, here's what you guys need to know about these two verses. Jesus calls these next two verses that we're going to look at the greatest commandment.

Okay, so if that doesn't bring some importance to this issue, remember that Jesus says, Of all of the Old Testament scriptures, all of the Hebrew Scriptures, there's one thing that's most important, and it's about what we're going to look at in just a second. That's what Jesus says about it. This verse would come to be known by every single Israelite. Okay, in Jesus's time, you wouldn't find one Jew who didn't know these verses by heart. It's the John 316,

of the Old Testament. It is called the Shema. Let's go to verse four, Hear O Israel, alright, that word here in Hebrew is the word Shema, okay. Shema means not just to hear, because I can hear stuff and not really pay attention to it. That's not exactly what this word means at all. Okay. This word means more like what we would say if we say, Listen,

okay? Listen means hear what I'm saying and obey it. Okay? This is God's word to God's people through Moses so they can have success in the land. Here is what they needed to have on their hearts. Here's what they need to be influenced by in everything that they did, everything that they thought, everything that they felt in their house, outside of their house, in their city, and outside of their city, they were to hear and obey the word that we're going to hear now these these two verses are actually called the Shema if you meet a Jew now, okay, who is devout today, they will recite these verses two times.

That's how important they still are here. Oh, Israel. So that word is Shema. So this is called the Shema, the Lord our God. Really, what that is saying is Yahweh is God, okay, Yahweh is actually the personal name of God. Anytime you see in your Bibles, especially in the Old Testament, l, o, r, d, in all caps, it's talking about the personal name of God. This is one of these places, actually everywhere, where it says Lord, here is one of those places where it's not just, it doesn't just mean Lord. It is talking about Yahweh, the one true God, and that's what you're supposed to teach your children, and that's what you're supposed to have on your hearts, that Yahweh is God.

Wow, what an awesome thing that we can teach our kids. How many of you have taught your kids that Yahweh is God? Then he says.

Lord is one. Alright, there's one Lord, Yahweh is God, And Yahweh is one. That's the second thing that he says, make sure that that word is on your hearts. Moses tells the Israelites, because in the land you're going it's not in their hearts. So you need to keep it close to your heart so that you can train your children. Make sure they know that Yahweh is God. Make sure that they know that Yahweh is one. There's only one God, and it's Yahweh. You shall love the Lord with all of your heart. Remember, we talked about what the heart was, what they thought it was. It was more like their mind. Love him with your intellect. Love him with your soul. Your soul is the deepest part of your being.

Moses is trying to remind the Israelites when you go into the land that God has promised you, don't forsake him. Make sure you continue loving him and don't just love him. Love him with all of your heart. Love him with the deepest part of you, your soul, and then even love Him with your physical strength, understanding that he is your Creator, and you have breath in your lungs because of him. Worship Him even, and love him even with your body, so with your heart, your soul, and with all of your might or all of your strength.

And that is the end of verse five,

the Shema should be very

important to you in your life as well. These are the things that you should be teaching and training your kids. So I guess I want to leave you with a couple things, because we need to take that whole message that Moses had for all of those Israelites, and we need to bring it home here. How do I take what he wanted them to know so they would have success? How do I take that into my own life. How do I take it into my own home and let it influence everything that I'm about? Well, the very first thing you need to know is you have to get God's Word in your heart. You have to get his Word in your heart. So how do you do that? That's a great question. You could come to a church like this that preaches the word of God. You can hear the Word of God, and you could make it a part of you.

When you're at home, you can grab the Bible, and the Bible is all of God's words. And so you can sit down and you can read this, and every time you read even one word of this book, you are hearing directly from God. That's how you make his word

a part of your heart, let it influence you in the things that you do with your hands, in the things that you think and you feel with your mind and your heart. Let it influence what happens at home. Let it influence what happens outside of the home. Take the Word of God and get it in to your heart as much as you can. I guess the next thing that I would want to tell you today is that nothing matters more than your children's faith.

Listen to me, nothing matters more than your children's faith. If you're a parent,

you have to know that the most important thing in your life is that your kids put their faith in Jesus, my little daughter, my nine year old, Hallie, you got to see her. A picture of her earlier she was baptized. Last week. That was my last child to accept Christ and be baptized. How cool is that? I know there's a passage that Paul talks about. He's talking about his fellow Jews, and he says, I wish that I would be damned

so that my fellow Jews could be saved.

He placed great importance upon the salvation of others, way more importance than even his own salvation. If you're a parent, that's the kind of heart you need towards your kids,

that if you could,

you would give up your own faith so they could KNOW and FOLLOW Him

forever.

Guess the last thing that I want to leave you with today is to train your kids to have faith in Jesus.

Train them. Well, how do I train my kids to have faith in Jesus? Why don't you start with Deuteronomy, six verses, four and five. Teach them you.

Teach them this, that Yahweh is God.

Teach them this, that Yahweh

is one.

Show them when they're looking and you don't even know they're looking. Show them how much you love Jesus and that he influences every decision in your life. Help them see that the most important thing that they can ever do is love the Lord God with all of their heart,

with all of their soul, with all of their mind

and with all of their strength.

Start there, because that's what God, through Moses was saying to the Israelites that day, if you want to have success in the land that God has promised you, you need to have the word of God on your heart so that you can train your kids to be influenced by God's words

every single place that they will ever go. And it all starts with you parents, and it shouldn't end with you teach your kids to teach their kids when they have them,

this chain

can't be stopped

you want your kids to know Jesus, but you want their kids to know him as well.

When my son leaves my house in a year and a half or so,

I hope that I've trained him well. Who God is, what he wants from him, that he's one and

that he should love him

with all of his heart, soul, mind and strength.

I don't know exactly where you are today. I don't know what God is laying on your heart. I don't know what he's speaking to you about, but whatever that is, maybe you need to come deal with it. Maybe you just need to get on your face before him in just a moment, these these altars here, they're going to be open, and you can come and you can pray right then and right there. Maybe you're wanting to make a decision, because maybe God's words haven't been on your heart like they should. You

want to make a decision to follow the Lord, or maybe you want to rededicate your life to the Lord. It's like re follow him, because you used to follow him, but you kind of haven't for a while.

After service, there's a prayer room right outside these doors. You can go and you can talk to somebody about that. You can pray with them. If you want to join this church, you can make this the time that you join the church. Go to that prayer room again and tell them, I want to be a part of a church like this that values the words of God, where the people have it written on their hearts,

where everything that they do with their hands is influenced by the words of God,

where everything that they think and feel is influenced by the words of God,

where I know that upon entry into this building, everything that happens here is influenced by God's words, maybe you just feel helpless as a parent.

Then you would say, I just need the Lord's help, because hard being a parent, I don't want to fail. You. Come pray. Here you can go and talk to somebody in that room, whatever the Lord is leading you to do, that's exactly what you need to do. Let's pray, Dear God. We, we, thank you so much.

We, thank you 3300 years ago,

you spoke through a man named Moses to the Israelites, and you told them what success is going to look like in the future. God, would you help us adopt that? Would you help us be influenced in every single thing that we do by your word?

Would you help us train our children to know the words of the Lord? Would you help us train them to have faith in you, because it matters so much for the next generation

and God, would you be with us as we do it in Jesus name we pray you?