Love God and Loving Family
Notes
Transcript
ME
Thank you Tim for the welcome and prayers for all of us and the offering, and thank you Pastor Joanne for giving us a taste of what KidMin hour is like. Hope that more parents will take the opportunity to sign-up and be a part of this experience where your son and daughter can learn more about how God is like a ...
WE
Praise God for this opportunity to kick off Generation Worship 2.0. I call it 2.0 because about a decade ago, while we still used the gym for English worship, we had our first Generation Worship. Everyone who comes into the church building immediately separates into 5 groups: adults go to sunday school or their own language’s worship service, the children go to the second floor, and the youth go to the Old basement. At 12:30 PM, the family comes back together and leaves church to go for dim sum. We’re never all together, so we thought about what would it be like to bring everyone of all age groups together once in a while to experience worship together, and so Generation Worship began. We had a total of eight of them between 2010 to 2012. However, it takes quite a bit of planning and practice, coordination and support from all congregations because we run it in English.I treasure those times. We were able to worship God together, learning from each other, regardless of language or age group, because that’s the way church was meant to be. That’s the goal, and by God’s grace we’re going to start today.
GOD
So today’s message has one purpose, one point, and it’s at the centre of what we believe. We want to learn to love Jesus more.
What is love? Is it complimenting someone? Is it that feeling of butterflies in your stomach when you see that special someone? Is it saying the words, “I love you” to someone before going to bed?
When the Bible talks about love, it has something specific in mind. Fuzzy feelings and butterflies are nice, but love is so much more than that. It’s about a relationship. The simplest way to understand this relationship is God has a relationship with us because he is our Father and he loves us. As a father, God shows us and tells us how much he loves us and wants what is best for us, and teaches us all the different ways we can love him back.
And because God loves us, he has rules for us. We have rules at home too right? No shoes in the house, especially dirty outside shoes. Indoor slippers are okay. We have rules about how late we should stay up. Why do we have rules? When we hear the word rule we often think it’s to punish me. But rules aren’t there to punish us unless they are broken. Rules, a lot of them, are for good reasons.
The slipper rule is so we don’t have to clean the floor every time or bring bad germs inside. The stay up rule is so we won’t be tired and have energy for the next day whether it’s to go to school or work. In Children’s worship, they’ve been learning about the rules God gave the Israelites before they entered the Promised Land. God gives them all these rules so they will live in peace with one another and so that they’d be holy people set apart for him. But all these small rules are part of a bigger rule, called the commandment, and it is this:
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
All the little rules that Moses gave to the Israelites were just ways to obey this biggest commandment, which is to love God. And remember, love is not just a feeling, though of course it’s good to feel each day you wake up in the morning. “You know, God loves me and I love God!” In other words, we want to do this, we like to to do this, we make this the first thing we do. See, when God talks about loving him, it means three things. Being in awe of him. Listening to him. And Telling others about him.
I. WE LOVE GOD BY FEARING HIM (6:1-2)
I. WE LOVE GOD BY FEARING HIM (6:1-2)
1 “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 to which you are going over, to possess it, 2 that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long.
I want you to notice what Moses says about fearing God. It says that you and your son and your son’s son are to fear God. Son doesn’t just mean the boys. It means all the younger people, boys and girls alike.
Moses is telling Grandpa to fear God, and telling Grandpa to teach his son, your dad, to fear God, and then telling your dad to teach you. And on and on. And then your father tells you to fear God. As a whole family, the commandment is the same: as a family, we need to fear God.
But what does it mean to fear God? The kids learned last week that fearing God isn’t being afraid of him. It’s having a healthy respect for him. It’s like we have a healthy respect for our stoves. We’re not afraid of them, but we know not to touch them when they’re hot.
Let’s go back and talk about rules. Don’t we feel scared when we break a rule? Why is that? Is it because we get in trouble? It’s also because there’s a punishment or consequence when we are wrong. But even though a punishment must come after rules are broken, a good parent never says “you are so bad that I don’t want you to be my child anymore.” They love us still, yet they still need to let us know when we do wrong, so they punish us so we’ll learn. Afterwards, do they love us less? No. The relationship is restored. And when we look at them, we love them at the same time we are afraid of them.
It’s the same with God. When we break God’s rules, and we do and will break them, God has to punish us because God is fair. He wants us to learn from our punishments. Even though he has to punish us, he still loves us.
II. WE LOVE GOD BY LISTENING TO HIM (6:3-4)
II. WE LOVE GOD BY LISTENING TO HIM (6:3-4)
3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Do you see the word that gets repeated? Hear. What does it mean to hear. It’s another way of saying pay attention. This is important.
Whenever an adult say, “why didn’t you listen to me?” Do you think they are saying suddenly your ear stops working and so you couldn’t hear them? It’s not you suddenly lost the ability to hear what they said, but more you chose not to obey what they said. It’s not just about hearing what is said. It’s about doing what it said. When we love God, we listen to him by hearing what he says and doing what he says. And when mwe obey someone, it’s because we trust that they know what’s good for us.
God is OUR God.
Not just your God. God doesn’t have your name on him. Not just my God. God doesn’t have my name on him. God is OUR GOD. All of us.
The harder to explain is the Lord is one.
What does it mean for God to be one? Is he alone? Is he lonely? Is there one God?
Well we have to understand a bit about all the other people around them, with names like the Hivites, Jebusites, Amorites. They all believe in many gods and goddesses. There’s a god for helping you to farm better, and another god who controls the weather, and a god that makes the sun come up in the morning. But Moses says this God he’s talking about is different. He alone can help your farming, controls the weather, and makes the sun come up. So everywhere else, you need many Gods to do many things. But this God alone does many things. So those who love this God don’t need to love other gods because he alone can take care of everything. This God is special.
And more than that, when they say “we love our God,” people will know they are talking about the God Moses was teaching about, and not the gods and goddesses. They belong to the Lord God. That’s the same with us, when we talk about God, we are talking about the God Moses was talking about. We are talking about his son Jesus, who is God. We aren’t talking about any other gods. And the more important thing is when you say I love God, your friends should be able to know it’s Jesus you are talking about. Because they see you and your family listen by obeying and doing what this God says in the Bible.
This is our identity.
This brings us to the third point:
III. WE LOVE GOD BY TELLING OTHERS ABOUT HIM (6:6-9, 20, 25)
III. WE LOVE GOD BY TELLING OTHERS ABOUT HIM (6:6-9, 20, 25)
6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 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. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
So you might ask how will others know about the God you love when you tell them “I love God?” Well, this is where the whole family comes in.
Parents, the Bible teaches very clearly in verses 6 and 7 it begins with you! It continues with you! You parents and the older generation. The older generation teaches the younger generation. So the primary way God wants his commandments to be taught is from a father or mother to a child.
But by extension he wants all older people to teach younger people, like a young couple can teach two single people who are about to get married, someone in early career can teach a university grad, and a university grad can teach a high school student, and a high school student can teach kids. Sometimes it even goes the other way and kids are the ones with important things older people can learn from.
But that’s what we do as a community called the church. We look out for one another. The pastor is but one person in the family of God. The responsibility of teaching continuously about loving God to the children is primarily in the parent’s hands. It’s to be always on your heart. So you are taught by God what you will then instruct your children with. God’s words being on your heart means those words are important and guide all that you say and do, and you are to be reminded of them at all times, not only on Sundays at church or during worship.
God doesn’t leave us without guidance. He instructs Moses in practical ways we can remember to continuously teach our children.
Remember two words, natural and intentional.
The first four ways are natural day to day living. When you sit in your house… that’s all any of us do right now in lockdown. But it means loving God should be taught at home.
Then it says when you walk by the way, which means when you’re out and about. When you have some places to go to. How might you take advantage of every car ride? Some turn on Christian music or a Bible story reader, but don’t stop there, you need to talk about what you’re hearing because what they understand they will know, and what they know, they will do. Maybe it’s watching a movie together as a family and then talking about what the Bible has to say about some of the stuff in that movie.
When you lie down could be bedtime stories and praying together. It could be a reminder that when we rest we know we are safe because God protects us. It could be about how you saw God moving in your life that day, and giving thanks to him.
And last when you wake up, is God the first thing on your mind or is it your social media account? How early might you need to wake up so you first have your time with God and in his word, so you have something to share with your family? Do you take turns? Have a plan.
Those are natural, but there’s also the intentional.
God instruct the Israelites to have reminders of his word everywhere. The frontlet is a box with a strap attached that rests on your head and in it contains some of God’s word. The sign on the hand is something similar except it’s a strap with written words of God on it that you tie to your left arm. It’s not much of a fashion expression and you could look pretty strange walking around today like that, but we have the best frontlet that we carry everywhere these days: our cell phones. We can fit the whole Bible in many different languages and versions on our phones.
But the key is intentional. Is there a verse image perhaps on your background? A notification to remind you about when to have your alone time with God? How can you intentionally put God and his word first so your family can see it, and your neighbours as well?
This comes to the last two suggestions, the doorposts and the gates. I know of one church down the street from our church building that has taken advantage of lawn signs and real estate signs and turned them into a sign which says they are there to bless their neighbours. Now that makes you really stand out. You are telling EVERYONE your household belongs to God, which means that everything you do will show everyone what kind of God you serve. It’s a bold move and I commend them for it. But if you aren’t neighbourly, like refusing to help to shovel your older neighbour’s snow even when they ask you, or you shoot your snow from your snowblower on the other neighbour’s small pile or onto the street, that’s on Jesus. It should be on you, but you made it about Jesus.
As for the gate, only cities have gates so it’s about how much the market, the civic buildings, and the courts live up to the standard and rules of God’s command. We live in a secular society, so we can’t control that. But if you own a business or a service, and you are known as a Christian business or service, you need to make sure you represent Jesus in the way you treat others.
YOU
But perhaps all this is stretching things too far as a starting point, for everything should begin first in our household.
How might we start first in our house? Well, my sister-in-law had a friend mail her these plastic huai chun ornaments and as I was thinking of where to hang them around, I finally settled on putting it right behind me on my bedroom door, it sparked an idea. Because everytime I need to go in I see it. Every time I turn around I see it. Might this be the frontlet or sign or the doorpost, something fairly easy to do with a string, some red construction paper, a black marker, to have on your door? You can make it as fancy as you like, but the purpose of it is to remind those who walk by it or enter into or leave to buy groceries to love God, and be a loving family. And what it means to love God, is to be in awe of him, listen to him, and tell others, starting with our own family, about him.
WE
And when we do so, not just think about his word, not just memorize his word, but do it, then it will spark the curiosity in the next generation to ask this question:
20 “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?’
And now you have a word to share, a story to pass on, a legacy that will live on for many generations.
Let’s pray.