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Listen, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and you must commit yourselves wholehearted to these commands that I have given to you today.

Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road and when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your foreheads as reminders.

Write them on your doorposts of your house and on your gates. The Lord your God will soon bring you into the land he swore to give you when he made the vow to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

It is the land with large purposes, cities, that you did not build. The houses you will be richly stocked with goods you did not produce. You will draw water from wells you did not dig.

And you will eat from the vine yards and olive trees you did not plant. When you have eaten and you have filled in this land, be careful not to forget the Lord who rescued you from the slavery in the land of Egypt.

You must fear the Lord your God and serve him. When you take an oath, you must, you must use his, only his name. You must not worship any gods of any neighborhood, any unknown nations.

Joey, thank you for reading our passage of scripture this morning. I really appreciate that. And man, what a powerful morning it's been already to witness these testimonies, to celebrate through worship together to our God and praise God.

Man, we have even more to come. And so that doesn't leave me a lot of time for a traditional sermon. But, you know, even in a short time, when we pause and meditate,

on God's word, it can have an incredible impact on our lives. Amen? Amen. So the passage that

Joey just read, that's going to be our passage this morning. It's from Deuteronomy chapter 6,

verses 4 through 13. You can find it in the Bibles in your seat back and read along with us as we

kind of break it down a little bit. Just know that on the screen, we'll be using the NLT version of

the Bible and you have the ESV in front of you. We use the NLT with our students, so we're using it

here this morning. But was that passage familiar to anyone? I feel like it's a fairly common passage.

Anyone hear some things that you're familiar with? Okay, I've seen a fair amount of hands. And part of

the reason that this passage is familiar to us is because it shows up again in the New Testament

when Jesus makes a big point to talk about it when he receives a question. You might have caught part

of that passage because in Matthew 22, 36 through 38, it says, teacher, which is the most important

commandment in the law of Moses? And Jesus replied, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart,

all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And so when Jesus gets the

request, he says, hey, what's the most important command? What's the thing that we need to care

the most about? He quotes Deuteronomy chapter six. And this is the most important commandment. This is

the way that this passage begins is it says, the Lord, our God is one, and you must love him with all your

heart, all your soul, and all your mind. Basically, it's saying, love God with everything that you have.

That's the most important commandment. You see, in Hebrew culture, the heart was more associated

with what we would say mind today. And some translations, especially Matthew, will use

the terminology, all your mind, all your heart, and all your strength. And so Jesus is saying,

love the Lord your God with all of your mind, with all of your strength, and with all of your soul.

He's saying, love the Lord your God through your actions. Love the Lord your God through your thoughts.

Love the Lord your God through your emotions. Love the Lord your God with everything that you have.

And this is my greatest hope. You know, as we see our students up here today, as we see them

leading and doing all these awesome things for God and the church, praise God. That's wonderful.

But at the end of the day, if you were to ask me, Joe, what is your greatest hope? Or to say to me,

man, how are you successful as a student pastor? How do you measure whether or not you're doing that

faithfully? What I would say is my greatest hope for our students, the measure of success is if our

young people have a vibrant, holistic love for God. That is the greatest hope that we can have for the

next generation is that they would love the Lord their God with all their heart, all their soul, and all

their mind. So for us, those of us who care about the next generation as a church that says, we want to raise up

people to love the Lord. How do we take action towards that end? And this isn't a message just for parents.

It's a message for parents, for grandparents, for influential adults. All of us have a role in raising up the next

generation. And when we read this passage in Deuteronomy, God doesn't give a disqualifier on the age of your

children. He doesn't say, teach your children and repeat to them the commandments of the Lord until they

reach the age of 18. So this applies to all of us. We all should help foster a love for God in the next

generation in our children. And as we continue to read, we see that God calls us to pass on that love

by doing two specific things. Let's read the passage. Starts in verse six. You must commit yourselves

wholeheartedly to these commands that I'm giving to you today. Repeat them again and again to your

children. Talk about them when you are at home, when you are on the road, when you are going to bed, and when

you are getting up, tie them to your hands, and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the

doorposts of your house and on your gates. And so first thing, we see that God is telling us if we want

to foster a love for the Lord in the next generation, it needs to begin by passing on God's teaching.

As a parent, that's my primary responsibility. That's my primary responsibility. It's any parent's primary role is to point their children to the Lord.

And you see, God's commands, they should go beyond Sunday school. Sometimes I think that we compartmentalize our faith a little bit.

And we have Bible studies, and when we go into those Bible studies, we open up the Bible and we teach, and we think about God's commands.

And we bring, you know, lots of us faithfully bring our kids to church and to Sunday school.

And that's a wonderful and amazing thing, but that's not what this passage teaches us about passing on God's love to the next generation.

It says, repeat them again and again. It says, talk about them when you are at home. Talk about them when you are on the road.

Talk about them in the morning when you get up. Talk about them in the evening when you go to bed.

And unless Todd starts offering Sunday school at home and on the road, and in the morning and in the evening, seven days a week, Sunday school is not going to accomplish the command that God is giving us in this passage as parents, as influential adults to teach the next generation.

You see, God's teaching should impact every part of our lives.

It shouldn't be something that we just bring out in these little boxes of church or Sunday school or Bible studies.

It should be something that we work into every part of our lives.

I'm sure that my two kids, Maisie and Shiloh, are going to get sick of me as a father because I bring up God's word every chance I get.

Why do I have to listen to you?

The Bible says, honor your father and mother.

Why do I have to do this?

Man, every time I can bring up the Lord, I try to bring up God and point them back to him.

Because we need to repeat them again and again.

The commands of Jesus should go beyond just single parts of our lives.

It should permeate every part of it.

And we need to teach our young people God's commands, not just in one place, but in every place.

And that's what discipleship looks like.

So I would encourage you.

Man, we saw the Aliquippa testimonies.

It's one of the powerful things that we did in Aliquippa.

Man, we looked for every opportunity to pray.

We looked for every opportunity to pass on God's teaching with our words.

We need to be bold in sharing that.

And young people need somebody to look up to.

They need someone to model for them what it looks like to obey God practically.

And to show them how God's teaching isn't just teaching that fits in a Bible study, but how it applies to all circumstances.

And this is why the passage continues.

This is why God continues.

Because the truth of God isn't classroom material.

It intersects with our lives.

And so he continues.

It says,

The Lord God will soon bring you into the land he swore to give you when he made a vow to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

It is a large land with prosperous cities that you did not build.

The houses will be richly stocked with goods you did not produce.

It will draw water from cisterns that you did not dig, and you will eat from vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant.

And when you have eaten your fill in this land, be careful not to forget the Lord.

Who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt.

You must fear the Lord your God and serve him.

When you take an oath, you must only use his name.

And so we see that we are not only called to pass on God's teaching, but to also pass on testimony of God's greatness.

When the people of Israel got to go into the promised land, it wasn't because of their greatness.

It wasn't because of their sufficiency.

It wasn't because of their own provision.

It was all the Lord.

He brought them out of Egypt.

He was faithful all the way through the generations back to Abraham.

And God says, do not forget what I have done for you.

I think this is incredibly important because sometimes, oftentimes, as parents, we can become, you know, centered on Scripture.

And that's wonderful.

We need to pass on Scripture.

We need to know it in our hearts.

We need to know it in our minds.

We need to, you know, interact with it on a daily basis and teach it to our children.

But you know what children do all the time is ask why.

My son, Shiloh, he follows me everywhere I go.

I can't get away from him.

You know, we just moved.

We've got a lot of projects going on at the house.

And, you know, in some ways it's difficult because it's hard to get them done.

Because Shiloh wants to come and be involved in everything that we're doing.

Here he is, three-year-old, learning to use a drill.

And every step of the way, he says, why you do that?

Why you do that?

Dad, why you do that?

Why you screw that?

Every, everything I do, he wants to stop and say, why?

Why are you doing that?

Why are you doing that?

And we're God's children.

And he knows that we are the same way.

That we are, we're a rebellious people.

That when we forget what God's done for us, our obedience falters.

You see, the faithfulness of God reveals the goodness of his commands.

The faithfulness of God reveals the goodness of his commands.

We need to teach, we need to pass on the commands, the teachings of Jesus.

But they will be so much more powerful when we pass on the testimonies of what he has done throughout history and within our own lives.

Because the devil's always lying.

He's always telling us, it's actually better this way.

You know what?

It's easier if you just go your own way.

Why don't you do things the way that you want to do them?

Did God really say that?

Do you really have to apply that teaching here?

Do you really need to obey that command?

And when you forget the faithfulness of God.

When you forget the things that he has done for you and for his people throughout history.

You begin to forget the goodness of his commands.

And the devil can weasel his way in and lie to you.

And you forget that he has given you these commands because he's a heavenly father who loves you.

That his commands are for your benefit.

And so we need to pass on Bible stories.

Kids need to hear Bible stories.

But they also need to hear our stories.

They need to hear your stories.

They need to see baptisms.

They need to see testimonies from Wildside, from Aliquippa, from your life.

Have you ever told your kids your testimony?

Have you ever shared your life story with them?

And how God showed up for you again and again and again?

I think if we do that, first, you'll be encouraged personally.

Because we're just as susceptible to forgetfulness as our kids are.

But man, I think our students will begin to see, man, this is why.

This is why I follow these commands.

This is why I follow these teachings of the Lord.

Because he is faithful and he is good.

And he loves us.

And everything he tells us to do is for our benefit.

And he will be faithful to us.

So share your stories.

Pass on Bible stories.

Pass on your stories.

And together, let's raise up a generation that will love the Lord with everything that they have.

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Have a blessed Lord's Day, and we'll see you on Sunday.