Sermon Transcript
From Deuteronomy 6. 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 in which you are going over to possess it, that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and and your son’s son, by keeping all of 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, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you and you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with 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 and with all your soul and with all your might.
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give 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.
When your son asks you in time to come, what is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you. Then you shall say to your son, we were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders great and grievous against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household before our eyes, and he brought us out from there. That he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always, that he might preserve, preserve us alive as we are to this day.
And it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us. It’s the word of the Lord.
Thanks, Dan. It is such an honor to be here in the 3rd week of our 40-day focus on studying God’s many gifts and how we can steward them well. If you’ve been with us the last few weeks, you will know that we have heard from Dan about how we can use our time and that it’s actually meant to benefit others. We’ve heard from Nate about how we can use our work, that it was something we were commissioned to do since the Garden of Eden, but that it’s actually meant to glorify God and not ourselves, and today we find ourselves at a particularly weighty topic, one that in many ways requires time. Work and has the potential to impact souls for all of eternity, the stewardship of our children.
Here are my credentials for this.
I know I haven’t been a parent very long, but any chance I can get to throw a picture of her up there, I will. She’s beautiful. She’s also here today in the back if you’d like to see her live. But I am struck by this message even though I’ve only been a parent for a short amount of time, that the Bible tells us about taking care of future generations. The Bible has a lot more to say about this than we often realize, and today we will uncover some of those truths, but first, let me share a story.
The summer after my first year of college, I was invited by a youth leader here to be a camp counselor for middle school students at Silver Spur. I was mainly excited to be with my 2 close friends who were going to be co-counselors with me, to relive memories of scripture memorization at the camp that I attended as a child myself, and of course to help come up with chants that we could scream at the other teams when we won because we were going to win. As a brand new adult, 18, 19 years old, I didn’t fully understand the responsibility I’d been given to steward these children in my care. I kind of thought I was just helping out and that You know, I was gonna be with my friends, what more could I ask for? And I remember turning vividly, I remember this, I’ll never forget it, I turned to my friend Andrew and I said, Andrew, what do I do?
I think I hate middle schoolers.
And Andrew told me it was gonna be okay, we’d only been there 2 hours, he said, it’s going to be okay, just pray and ask God to help you. And of course, Andrew was right, but I wish I had more awareness back then to know what an incredible opportunity the Lord was affording me. I can actually think back to so many times when I just brushed some kid in church off because it wasn’t my week to work in children’s church or I really felt like I just didn’t have the time. Those were all chances to show children that they matter and to show them the love of God even if in a small way. When I reflect on this story and these moments of failure, I am left wondering, What if it is in these small, seemingly insignificant interactions where God could be asking us to stop, pay attention, and care for his children that he has so graciously entrusted us with?
What if there is more for us to do than let the kid people in our church handle the children and the rest of us will participate in church life in other ways? I believe God may have more in store for us than that. Today as we examine this famous message given to Israel, one of the most famous of all time, we will uncover the first step in caring for God’s children, the journey that follows, and the final destination of our faithful stewardship. So that’s the first step, the journey, and the final destination. Let’s begin together.
Our first step is to go inward before we go outward. Moses is telling us he wants us to be connected to God and know his commandments before we move on to teach them to our kids. And to understand this step, we need to break down what God was calling his people to when they were listening to this deathbed sermon that Moses was delivering them. And if you aren’t brushed up on your Torah reading, I’ll help you catch up today. So in Deuteronomy 6, Moses is speaking to a generation that has spent 40 years in the wilderness and they are about to enter the Promised Land and you probably remember Moses won’t even get to go with them because of some bad decisions that he made.
They’ve seen God’s provision, his care, and his discipline and now Moses is repeating the law to prepare them for the challenges that lie ahead. Israel would soon encounter nations that worshiped other gods and lived contrary to his commands. Moses’s instructions were crucial. You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and might. He is speaking here of the covenant God is making with his people.
For the Israelites, this was a declaration of allegiance to the one true God. They said it morning and night. In the ancient world, the idea of loving a God with all your heart, soul, and strength was radical. This wasn’t just about following rules or performing religious rituals, it was about total, undivided devotion to God. So let’s break this down a little bit.
When Moses says, with all your heart, he is talking about your deepest desires and affections, encompassing both things. Thinking and behavior. If you recall, Jesus would later call out the mind specifically when sharing this great commandment in Matthew 22, Mark 12, and Luke 10. With all your soul speaks to your very life and being, the core of who you are. This is what got first-century believers, if you remember, in trouble with Rome.
Rome didn’t really care who you made sacrifices to as long as your true allegiance lied with the emperor. With all your might, or strength, indicates action and effort, it requires exertion. Everything you do should be motivated by your love for God. Ultimately, what is being communicated here is that in light of who God is, the proper response is to love him with everything that you are and nothing less. God gave this command, but he didn’t just stop there.
With it, he provided a way for it to be transmitted to more of his people. And when we look closely at this passage that’s known as the Shema, this prayer that they repeated twice a day, we see a message that is not strictly for moms and dads or guardians. It was delivered to the whole assembly of Israel. According to Moses, we collectively as the body of Christ should teach these commands to our children continually. More on that in a bit.
If Israel was to live well with God in the land, then these words needed to saturate their national life. They must be passed on from generation to generation. But what about us? When you hear that command, it’s probably very familiar to you, to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and might, how does it resonate? With you?
Is it just a nice idea, a familiar command you’ve heard, or is it something that actively challenges the way that you live? We may think of our lives in different boxes sometimes. We have church life, family life, home life, work life, but Moses is calling us here for love, the love of God to permeate every part. Of our lives. It’s not about occasional devotion, but a life centered on him.
Loving God with all our being means that every decision, relationship, and pursuit is filtered through him, and it is from this foundation that we begin our stewardship of children. We cannot teach our children or disciple others if we don’t know and keep God’s commands for ourselves. If we say we believe God’s commands are worth keeping, but don’t actually do them, we are just teaching children that it’s okay to be hypocrites. Our credibility completely evaporates if we don’t model repentance when we fall short or fail to obey. If we don’t love God with all of us, we can’t expect our children to get it.
I’ve learned this in my own parenting already. I’ve seen that I can only shepherd my child well as I am led by my Good Shepherd who shows me how to love, discipline, nurture and teach. As he promised, he provides all I need for life and godliness and for motherhood. Maybe you don’t feel equipped to teach. You can be honest with your children about that.
You can tell them where you are, that you’re still learning and want to live a life that glorifies God. There’s no better time to start. So we must go inward and check our hearts before we go outward. We approach caring for kids from a place of commitment to walk in the commands God has given us, not just so our kids do them too, but because we authentically believe God is worth listening to and obeying. We believe with our whole lives that he is good and his rules are worth following, not because he is trying to keep us from the fun things that we really wanna do, but because he himself is the best thing this life has to offer, and he is the one who can help us live righteous lives.
It’s our responsibility to take the first step of stewarding children by keeping his commandments faithfully and showing our children that we do so not from a place of feeling manipulated or trying to earn God’s favor. We set the tone by living out what Jesus said in John 14, that if we love him, we will keep his commandments. His commandments. Thankfully, Moses didn’t leave us in wonder or disarray about how we should go about this. He told us exactly what to do.
He provided clear instructions, and they bring us to what the ongoing journey of stewardship should look like. The ongoing journey of stewardship requires that we teach children diligently and consistently everywhere you go. Let’s read verse 7, it says, you shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise. Moses gives practical instructions here for teaching God’s commands within the rhythms of everyday life. His words emphasize that this teaching should not be occasional but continuous.
Always present regardless of time, place, or company. The phrase teach them diligently in Hebrew suggests careful, consistent effort, like sharpening a tool or engraving something into stone. Spiritual teaching is not a one-time event but a constant ongoing process that I’m sure a lot of us have experienced. The words when you sit, when you walk, when you lie down, and when you rise cover all aspects of home life, don’t they? Home, travel, daily routines, everything we do.
And for Israel, this meant sharing God’s word throughout their journeys as they walked through the wilderness, when they rested at night, and the activities they completed together. For us, the application is similar. Spiritual teaching should permeate our everyday lives during meals, car rides, bedtime, or morning routines. These moments are all opportunities for spiritual conversations and lessons. This could look a number of different ways.
When he says sitting in the house, I think of home life. This could include family devotions, prayer, reading the Bible during meals. You could have your children practice telling Bible stories to their siblings. Walking by the way, to me this conveys outdoors, traveling, casual conversations during car rides, walks, or outings regardless of where you are. You could be in public and still talking about Jesus.
Lying down, when you lie down, I think of this as bedtime, so prayers before bed, reflecting on the day from a biblical perspective and talking about how God is in control. And when you rise, your morning routine, starting the day with prayer, scripture, or affirming God’s goodness. And these are all things that adults can use too, it doesn’t have to be just for children. You can engage with children by asking them, what does this make you think about God? Let them discuss what they believe and start pulling out truths about God from their own hearts.
We can train them to speak about things with the language of God being in control. Now some of you may be thinking, my kid doesn’t like this, or they won’t respond well, this will not work. And that’s understandable. Every child is different and what works for one may not work for another. We can try to get creative and approach things differently.
Consider asking your life group or others what worked for them and their children. Lean on the Christian community if you’re struggling, and even if they don’t seem to enjoy it now, know that the seeds planted will likely bear fruit later. Now beyond formal moments, we never know when an organic conversation about God will arise. It might happen when kids are scared, confused, or feeling apathetic. It’s our job to create an environment where they feel safe asking big questions and sharing their struggles with God.
This is one reason why spending quantity time with our kids, a lot of time with them, is so necessary. We cannot predict when the quality time will happen. Alba, our children’s director, our director of family ministries actually, she says that she loves to think about this in the context of creating a Scripture-rich environment. One of the many things I love about Alba is that she believes wholeheartedly in the responsibility we have to help kids hide God’s Word in their hearts. This means having God’s word on the walls, in the music you listen to, pictures in the books that are read, really making the stories of the Bible come to life for kids while they are young.
And in doing this, if we think about it, we are really participating in the preparation they need for the future. So for those of you who have kids, I want you to imagine this with me. Let’s say our kids are much older, possibly getting ready to enter adulthood. Let’s say some hard things start to happen to them. Let’s say they’ve been hurt by their friends, they don’t get that job, they fail a college class, or they are faced with some deeply dark thoughts.
They can pull into the archives of their hearts and find those verses that they learned in the car, at Sunday school, and before going to sleep. These cute melodies we incorporate when they are young could become the background music of their lives, the mental screensaver they remember when they’re just sitting around. They can rest in the truth that the Holy Spirit himself can call to mind that was once a silly tune to help them memorize a Bible verse. For them, it will no longer just be a song. It will be the truth they stand on when the waves of life threaten to overtake them.
Now stewarding God’s children isn’t just about diligence, it’s also about the support of the entire body of Christ. As a church, we must support parents in this vital role. It is not just for parents. Moses makes it clear, the next generation cannot be left to figure out their relationship with God on their own. The faith must be intentionally passed down, and who is responsible?
Moses doesn’t say leave it to the priests or let’s wait for the temple worship. He says teach them diligently to your children. This responsibility falls to parents, but it is not limited to the home. The message was given to all the assembly of Israel, meaning the whole body of believers. It’s a communal task.
Effort, we all have a part to play. Christian Smith, a researcher that I found as I was preparing for this message, studies the faith of youth in church, and he shared this in a book that I read. He said, one of the distinguishing marks of young people who continue their church participation as adults is that they developed a warm and trusting relationship with an adult other than their own parents. Just one adult makes a big difference. The entire body needs to see value in the lives of children and commit to being a part of helping them grow in their relationships with Christ.
So it’s not only for parents, grandparents, single people, those who do not feel called to work in children’s ministry. Students, empty nesters, people who are retired, those who have no reason at all to interact with children in their everyday lives are still part of this command to teach them and play an active role in preparing and equipping children for a life of faith. Whether you participate only via prayer, you feel challenged to volunteer in a new space, or maybe you just wanna learn about a new family and ask how you can be supporting them. There is room for you wherever you are to participate in the diligent stewardship of our young people. Some ideas of how you could do this, come see the children sing at an event like Cocoa Cookies and Carols that we just had back in December.
Consider volunteering with someone like Harold Stenfort at our kids’ summer camp. Maybe sign up for an interactive portion of Fall Family Fun that you wouldn’t normally do. How about sign up for Night to Shine that we just heard about today in a role that best fits your abilities, or try to learn one kid’s name the next time you see them in our worship services. They’re here for the worship part. Look at them, smile, give them eye contact.
You can connect with young families too during fellowship hour, which just restarted earlier this year, by the way, so thanks to everyone who has helped with that, and ask for specific prayer requests, but don’t just ask and then walk away, follow up with them. Trust me, us young families, we need people who are a few steps ahead of us to remind us of the big picture, to pray for us and tell us that we will sleep again. That our children will not always be this way and that it’s okay to struggle. The church is not just a place where children learn Bible stories, it’s a community where they should see God’s love in action. God himself talks about his family like a family.
He uses the words brothers and sisters, so it should feel like family. We should be a community that models the love of God so that when children look around, they see older Christians, who are walking in the faith and who are willing to engage with them, and in doing so, take time to show them that truth matters, they matter, and the gospel really is their only hope. I have been so blessed to see this in action in my own life here at Bridges. I will never forget how the members of the choir here made me feel when I came to the end of their rehearsals after Awana, as a kid. Not all of them were parents, not all of them were kid people, or even probably that interested in me.
They weren’t in children’s ministry, yet they talked to me and checked in on how I was doing. And some of those people have ended up being ones that I connect with weekly as an adult. They were consistent in engaging with me and making me feel like they didn’t just love my parents, but they loved me too. So parents, this is good news, you don’t have to do it alone, it’s not all on you. There is the support of youth ministry and children’s ministry.
Praise God for DK, Andrew, Alba, Lilia, Kathy, and so many countless volunteers who continually pour out their lives for the sake of sharing the truth of God’s word with the children in this community. As Alba likes to say, what they do is not just childcare, it’s not just a youth group, it’s investing in lives, helping parents, it’s providing a safe space for children to develop a foundation of faith. It needs to be both, both family life and church life. This diligent teaching, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down, and when you rise should be further affirmed and upheld by the things that children are learning here. We need to continually expose our kids to adults who have a genuine walk with the Lord.
We need church gatherings where people can bring their kids to connect with people of all ages, and if we are people who don’t typically connect with kids at those events, we should be willing to try it. And parents need to commit to actually bringing your kids. Go eat lunch after church with the gathering behind this building. Sit with people other than your friends or your kids’ friends at our all-church potlucks. The family and compassion ministry teams here have worked so hard to make sure there are opportunities for intergenerational interactions at many of these events.
Like our recent Christmas decorating day, Feed My Starving Children, and even the missions trip that is currently happening as we speak with multiple generations represented. You can be a part of these events. Now it’s not going to necessarily always work with your schedule or be the most convenient. In fact, I can probably promise you that it will not always work. It might even cost you something, but if you neglect taking your children to church or providing them with opportunities to connect with other Christians, how else will this happen?
How else will they know the body and learn that they play an important part in it? Children long to be heard and valued. How we steward them diligently, consistently, as a whole body will show them their worth in God’s eyes and display his redemptive work. So the journey may be long and it will certainly come with its challenges, But what awaits us as we reach the conclusion of this passage? We have reached our final destination, resting in his redemption.
For Israel, teaching the next generation centered on recounting their history, how God saved them from Egypt. In verses 20 to 25, Moses anticipates that children will ask, what is the meaning of the laws the Lord has commanded you? This question comes from a place of curiosity, seeking to understand the significance of the practices they observe. When the children ask why Israel follows God’s commands, Moses instructs parents to recount God’s saving work. Verse 21 says, then you shall say to your son, we were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out with a mighty hand.
And the Lord showed signs and wonders great and grievous against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household before our eyes, and he brought us out from there that he might bring us in and give us the land he swore to give to our fathers. This is the Exodus story. Moses tells parents to explain that God’s laws aren’t arbitrary but tied to his faithfulness and deliverance. The laws are signs of God’s grace and covenant with Israel. When the next generation asks, why do we do this, Christians get to rest in this answer, because God has saved us, because God has been faithful.
One of the most powerful parts of stewarding children is the opportunity we have to share about God’s redemption. This story is not just something we read in the Bible, it’s the foundation of our faith. The instructions at the end of this chapter tie directly into the first part of Deuteronomy 6, that we should impress God’s commandments upon the next generation. It’s not enough to simply teach the rules or the behavior, we must teach the story, we must teach the person behind the commandments, and we have the whole story now that Israel didn’t have. We get to see the picture of how God has delivered his people and how his grace has saved us.
So instead of just saying to children, God wants you to love others, you could explain, we love others because Jesus showed us the greatest love by laying down his life for us. He sacrificed himself on the cross to take our sins upon himself, so now we love others as a way to reflect the love that he showed us. When asked why we are called to forgive, rather than simply saying because it’s a good thing to do, We can explain that Jesus forgave us when we didn’t deserve it, even when we were his enemies. Because of his forgiveness, we are able to forgive others, not because they deserve it, but because he first forgave us. It’s not enough to teach kids to obey God’s commands.
If we focus only on behavior, they may miss the heart of the gospel. This is the difference between do this to make God happy or because God said so, and Jesus has already done it for you. We get to obey him. We must teach them that we bring nothing to God, there is nothing we could bring him that would ever measure up. We are rescued by grace.
Without this, we run the risk of raising children who follow rules but miss the relationship with the one who fulfilled them for us. They might know the words, but they will not know the word. Now some of you may know this, others might not, but today is Sanctity of Life Sunday, a reminder that God is the giver of life and we are called to value and protect it. Churches across the US focus today on God’s intentional care and provision for future generations. In this passage, we see God’s plan at work.
He has purposes for people who are yet to be born. Just as he promised the land to the Israelites, he has a plan for every life from conception to final breath. As Moses reminds the people in verse 2, God’s plans extend beyond their generation to their children and their children’s children. It says that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son’s son. In verse 10, the people are reminded that they are in fact walking in a promise that was made generations before them, and in verse 20, as we just discussed, Moses points out that the future generation will likely have big questions about everything that they did.
Caring for those who have yet to be born is an extension of our responsibility to future generations, ensuring that every child has the opportunity to fulfill the purposes God has for them with love and dignity. God has already planned the lives of children who we haven’t even met or thought of yet, and it’s our calling to steward them, ensuring that they can live out the plans God has for them. We need to recognize that we are not just living for ourselves, but for those who will who will come after us. The stewardship of life, whether born or unborn, is part of God’s bigger plan, and we have the privilege of partnering with him in it. For every child who is here or who will one day be here, we must be prepared, we must be vigilant.
Our children will wonder why we believe what we believe. They will ask, why do we pray? Why do we go to church? Why do we read the Bible? And when they do, we need to be ready to point them back to how God has redeemed us and that he has a plan for them.
We will point them to the cross, to the resurrection, to the God who has been good to us and has promised to be good to them. We get the opportunity to tell the story of a God who, as we just celebrated a few short weeks ago, came to earth as a child himself, one who became flesh so that we might know him. We get to tell the story of the only child in history who did not depart from the way he should go, one who participated in the temple life and grew in wisdom and stature and in faith with God and man. He is the only one who learned it all, the commands, the statutes, the rules, the desires of God’s heart, and did it perfectly. He is the one who would grow up and later himself say the words, let the little children come to me, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.
He is the only one who actually accomplishes what these instructions are and has made a way for us to be part of God’s family. Because that is what God is doing through us. So let’s be honest, our children will be stewarded by something. Whether we realize it or not, all the things they fill their minds and time with will shape what they think about the world and God himself. If you do not spend time actively teaching them about God, and if we don’t do this as a community, something else will.
Will fill that time. Will we partner with God to perpetually steward them toward his heart, or will we let the world or someone else do it? It’s our responsibility and honor. By God’s grace and through his power alone, let it be us. Let’s pray.
Father, we thank you for entrusting us with these precious souls, precious gifts that come from you. We ask that as an entire body, we would seize the opportunities before us to help shape their hearts and minds to love you forever. Remind us to turn in and see how we can be living more in alignment with the Shema. Show us even now how to love you more completely with all of our hearts, all of our souls, all of our might. I pray that you would give us all chances to connect with these young people and that we would actually take them, that with our lives we would reflect that we actually believe every person is made in the image of God and is worthy of value.
And in our stewardship, Lord, would you make us people who communicate in everything that we do that knowing you is what life is all about. In Jesus’ name, amen. Amen.
