Knowing the World Through the Word or How to Introduce Covenant Culture into Your Home
M. Heckel, 6-24-11
I. Read Deuteronomy 6:4-9 & Ephesians 6:1-4.
II. Intro: We’ve had Mother’s Day and Father’s Day was last week. Well today I’ll be preaching on children and the family, so we might call this family day. The Bible has a lot to say about families and raising children.
I am far from an expert on these things. I am very much a father in training. I’m very glad we have God’s word, because I could not teach about this subject on my own expertise. So Let’s take a look at what God is saying to his people in our passage.
III. Historical Context:
A. Israel is about to enter the promised land. Moses has led God’s people out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, entered into covenant with them on Mt. Sinai, given them the Ten Commandments, and they have just wandered in the dessert for forty years. They wandered in the dessert because of their disbelief. They did not believe that they could destroy the inhabitants of the land, even though God was sending Israel as his instrument of judgment. God had given them into Israel’s hand, but ten out of the twelve spies said “There are giants in the land.” They rejected the Word of God and so God rejected that generation. They all died in the dessert except the two believing spies, Joshua and Caleb, and their families.
B. Now they are on the border of the promised land again, and God is about to renew the covenant with his people.
C. After the fall of Adam, God reestablishes relationship with his people through a covenant. In a covenant God makes promises to Israel and calls his people to obey. In this section, God is calling his people to keep the covenant.
D. (Application) Like Israel, we too are God’s people. The church is God’s New Covenant people. So God is addressing us in this passage as well.
IV. God is One, 6:4
A. In verse 4 God solemnly calls his people to attention. Whatever follows is of the utmost importance. The Jews understood this, and made it their great confession of faith that they recite every morning and evening.
B. The Lord, who is Israel’s God is one God. This is know as monotheism and it made Israel unique. All other ancient religions worshipped many gods and were thus polytheistic. The oneness of God also means that his people can trust him. A polytheistic god cannot be trusted because the gods are in conflict.
C. (Application) But this means that we can trust God today no matter what the gods of the market and media do. The market may plummet but God is still on his throne. Brittany may have lost custody, but the Lord never loses custody of us.
V. Loving God, 6:5
A. Israel is told, “You shall love Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
B. This shows us that we are to love God with our whole being. He isn’t just part of our lives, he must be our lives.
C. This shows us that love can be commanded. Love is a feeling but it is also a commitment. God commands us to love him. Loving God is a commitment. I’m sure that Israel didn’t always feel like obeying God, but she was commanded to love him.
D. (App) Similarly, we don’t always feel like loving our spouses. We don’t feel in love. But if we love our spouse in spite of our selfish feelings the deepest feelings will eventually spring from our hearts. C. S. Lewis in The Four Loves says that we expect being in love to be like falling in love. But falling in love is only the incentive. It is like the dive into the pool. But once we are in the pool, swimming, not diving, is the thing.
E. Loving God also makes Israel unique. All other ancient religions related to their gods primarily through fear. You did not love Zeus. You might have feared him, but you did not have a personal relationship with him. You sacrificed to him so that he would not be angry; so that you would stay off of his radar. But Israel is unique. Listen to these verses:
i. Gen. 15:6, Abraham “believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” We have a right relationship with God based on faith not works.
ii. Genesis 6:8, “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” God’s grace is the basis of our relationship with him.
VI. God’s Word, 6:6-7
A. God’s word is to be on our hearts.
B. We are to teach it diligently to our children.
C. How do we do this you ask? We are to “talk” the word of God:
i. “when you sit in your house, and when you walk along the way.” This covers the private and the public realms. This means we are to discuss the word of God everywhere we go.
ii. “and when you lie down, and when you rise.” This is a common Hebrew way of saying “all day.” We are to discuss the word of God at all times.
iii. We get the word of God into our hearts and into the hearts of our children by discussing all of life in relation to the word of God. This is the divine curriculum.
D. (App) Even 2 + 2 = 4 needs to be discussed in relation to God. This reflects the nature of an orderly and logical God who made a creation that can be described mathematically. We can penetrate the mathematical nature of the world because we are made in God’s image. Though they like four bones better than two, dogs don’t understand that 2 + 2 = 4. Now think about discussing politics, philosophy, history, literature, economics, business, art, sports, and relationships in relation to the word of God! That’s a marvelous thing, but it’s only possible if we know the word of God.
E. Before the time of print culture, the people of god would have heard and memorized God’s word in worship and in the family. Today each of us can afford a Bible of our own. We can sit down, open it up, smooth out the pages and read what God has said about these things.
F. (App) A few years ago I realized that my Bible knowledge was slipping. I noticed that worldly influences we’re creeping in upon me. I had three degrees in divinity, and I had begun to take the Bible for granted. I had quite reading. I was reading plenty of other theology, but there is no substitute for the word of God. I had to get back into it, so I started by reading a Proverb a day. There are thirty-one chapters, one for each day of the month. I must have read through Proverbs five times, stopping, restarting, and faltering many times until I reformed the habit. Then I started reading Acts and then the Psalms at the same time. I started reading the books I was reading to my family after supper and then the kids started reading them. We’ve still have a long way to go but we’re going.
G. (App) Douglass Wilson says that there are three kinds of culture we can have in the home. We can leave a cultural void that the media is only too happy to fill with television, internet, materialism, and consumerism. Or we can create a culture of rebellion when we preach on thing but live another in front of our family. Or we can build a Christ centered culture with the word of God (Standing on the Promises).
VII. Experiencing God’s World through God’s Word, 6:8-9
A. “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand.” We touch the world with our hands and we are to touch the world with God’s word. This brings healing to a sick world. It mends the brokenness.
B. “They shall be as frontlets between your eyes.” We see the world through our eyes. We are to see the world through God’s word like a pair of glasses if you will. In order to see the world the way God does, he needs to adjust our prescription.
C. “On the doorposts of your house.” Even the rooms in our house are to reflect the gospel. Do our rooms glory God? Do they point us to family time, play time, feasting, festivity, celebration, orderliness, rest, and quiet time in his word? Or are our rooms permeated with worldliness and distraction?
D. “On your gates.” The gate is the way to the outside world and the way back in to the home. This gate is to be guarded by the word of God. In all our comings and goings we are to experience the world through God’s word.
VIII. Conclusion: People of God, we must remember that our God is one, he’s consistent, and can be trusted. We are to love him with our whole being, committed to him no matter what. His word is to be on our hearts and taught diligently into the hearts of our children all the time, everywhere we go, and thus in relation to all of life. We are to experience God’s world through his Word. So let’s open the word, smooth out the pages, read, and let God write it on our hearts. Let’s be transformed by the word and let the word transform the world around us. It won’t be easy. There will be set backs, but God can build a Christ centered culture around us. For nothing is impossible with our God.
