Deuteronomy 6:1-25 | Shepherding Your Family | Don Romano

Good morning. Hi, Bill. How's it going?

Well, if you're involved in kids ministry, children's ministry, this is your chance to escape before it's too late. Okay, you know what? I'm going to step down here this morning.

Well, if you are visiting us this morning, I want to welcome you. If you're visiting online, you're welcome, too. You should come down and see us sometime. We'll be here. We'll shake your hand and everything.

And as Nick said before, please don't forget to fill out the connect card, either in the back of the seat in front of you or if you're online somewhere near the viewer that you're watching right now. These cards help us be able to contact you and follow up on your experience here at Renovation Church. And we promise we will not spam your inbox or your texts, just so you know.

And we won't sell your information or give it away. It's between you and us. Well, we are between series this morning, which is always exciting because I get to say anything I want to say. I get to talk about whatever I want to talk about. And I'm not constrained by, you know, the current series that we're in.

I don't know why it seems to fall on days that Alex is not here, but I appreciate it. So I'm not going to check up with him and see if he'll change that around. I want these days all for myself. But let me ask you a question before we get started into it too much this morning. What is the most important thing in your life?

Think of two or three things, maybe, and just shout out an answer. What's the most important thing in your life? Family.

Yeah. Walk with God.

Family. Good.

Anything else? Health. Health is kind of important to us, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. It's okay.

All right, well, let me ask it another way. What in your life is most precious to you? Does that change your answer at all?

We're going to pretty much stick with faith, family, and health. Okay. That's legit for most people. My family ends up somewhere on the list, and that's completely reasonable, understandable, and even acceptable. And I believe that that answer honors God.

It honors who he made us to be, and it honors the circumstance that he created at the beginning. So family is good. Families are one of the most important things in our lives, and we tend to value them pretty highly. Okay, I can live with that. In fact, I was kind of hoping that that would be the answer, because if it wasn't, then the rest of the morning is going to be pretty painful.

But we love our families, we value our families. We tend to think about our families almost all the time, don't we? You might say that our families are written on our hearts or that we love our families with all our heart, all our soul and all our might. When we talk about or when we talk to people, one of the things we tend to talk about is our family. And one of the questions we ask is about their family.

How are things going? Hey, you know, I remember your son had something going on. Can you tell me about that? How's he doing? I've been praying for him, that sort of thing.

When we talk to people, we ask about their families, we tell them about our families, and it's. Well, the way it breaks down is we tend to talk about our families when we sit in our home, when we walk together out there, when we lie down to sleep, Our family's on our mind, right? We tend to talk to God about our family when we're in bed. And when we rise up in the morning, we. We tend to wonder about how they slept, how they're doing today.

Is everybody okay? Is anybody sick? Are they feeling better if they were sick yesterday? See, we write our family's names on our doorpost, on the doorposts of our lives, or at least on our welcome mats, right? At least some of us do, right down there on the ground so you could wipe your feet right there.

We take our family's names and we do about the equivalent of writing their name on the doorpost in our homes. We write them on the walls, especially on that place where the children and the grandchildren stand up against there to see if they've grown at all, right? We write their names all over the place. We rise up and wonder about how they're doing. We write their name on our walls, in the places of honor and places where they're seen, right?

Family seems to be in the forefront of our thinking almost all the time. If we're not careful, family could take up the place that should be God's place in our life.

So you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to read Deuteronomy 6, and you can turn to this passage if you'd like, Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 through 9, because it tells us something about family there.

Deuteronomy 6, starting at verse 4, it says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. These words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons 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 up. Hey, that sounds like how we treat our families.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your heart, of your house, and on your gates.

Wow.

So we think of our families in those ways, just kind of naturally. But God is saying the things that I've revealed about myself.

I want you to treat those things that way. In fact, all the commandments and the laws that I gave you, I want you to treat them like that. I want them to be ingrained in your heart. I want them to be on your mind. I want you to say them just like you say your children's names.

When you go out there, there ought to be some physical evidence that you belong to me. Wear them right on your forehead, in the middle of your forehead, right between your eyes. So people look at you and they go like, oh, yeah, this is one of those. God's people.

Hmm, interesting.

You know, in the next verses, verses 10 through 12, Deuteronomy goes on to warn us that in good times, for example, when God is gracious toward us, or in their case, when he breaks, you know, in the next verses, verses 10 through 12, Deuteronomy.

But when things are going good and God's blessing is really on us, we have this tendency to forget about Him. And he warns Israel in this passage, don't forget. Keep it right there all the time.

That would never happen to our families, would it? Our families are so deeply ingrained in our hearts that we never forget them. They're just right there all the time.

Now, if you've still got your Bible out, turn to the Book of Job right at chapter one.

While we're thinking about our families like this, while we have our family right here in front of us in our thinking. There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. And that man was blameless, upright, fearing God, turning away from evil. Seven sons and three daughters were born to him. Big family.

His possessions were 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and very many servants. And that man was the greatest of all the men of the East.

His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day. And they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When the days of feasting had completed their cycle, Job would send and consecrate them, rising up early in the morning and offering burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. This Job did continually.

Well, who wouldn't do that for their children, right? I mean, don't we bring our children before God in prayer all the time and make requests for them?

In verse 6 it goes on now. There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, from where do you come? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, from roaming about on the earth and walking around on it. The Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job?

For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.

Then Satan answered the Lord, does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. Job was not one of those guys who turned away from God and forgot about him when things were going good.

Verse 11. Satan continues, but put forth your hand now and touch all he has, he will surely curse you to your face. Then the Lord said to Satan, behold, all he has is in your power only do not put forth your hand on him. So Satan departed from the presence of the Lord. Now, on the day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, a messenger came to Job and said, the oxen were plowing, the donkeys feeding beside them, and the Sabeans attacked and took them.

They also killed the servants with the edge of the sword. And I alone have escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, another also came and said, the fire of God fell from heaven, burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed alone have escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, another also came and said, the Chaldeans formed three bands and made a raid on the camels, took them and slew the servants with the edge of the sword. And I alone have escaped to tell you.

While he was still speaking, another came and said, you sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house. And behold, a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house. And it Fell on the young people and they died. And I alone have escaped to tell you.

Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, fell to the ground and worshiped.

Of course, like Job, every one of us would be crushed under those circumstances. Especially the sudden, tragic loss of our family.

You know, we all lose family eventually, and many of us already have.

There's an old saying that portrays great wisdom, and it's designed to challenge our me centered approach to life.

That saying is, what if marriage is not intended to make you happy, but to make you holy?

That's a challenging thought. There's another one.

And it's another question. Does God give children the parents they need? Or does God give parents the children they deserve?

You know, we've all heard that curse, haven't we? By someone who understands what it means when we've heard these words. I hope God gives you one just like you.

You never say that about the good kid, right? Well, I'm here today to talk about family, as if you couldn't tell. And not just children. I want to extend beyond children, beyond offspring, the other direction, to parents, right in the middle, to our spouse. If we have a spouse, spiritual family, or our fellowship.

We are God's family.

And I said in passing that if we're not careful, family can take up the place in our lives that is rightly God's place.

That's more than just a warning, by the way. That phrase should reveal something to us. God not only wants, but is the only thing who deserves to hold that first place in our lives, in our thoughts, in our affections, when we establish our values. He stands above our children, our spouse, even above our own self as being of supreme importance. What's the most important thing in your life?

Family was right out front, wasn't it? As an answer. But why is God not the first thing?

Maybe we need to adjust just a little bit. It's just a tweak because the family has to come right under that.

Well, why shouldn't God be of supreme importance in our life? After all, he's the Creator, right? And we are his creation. So he's high above us, even above our families. If it wasn't for him giving them to us, we wouldn't have families.

More than that, we are the one thing in all of creation that he made especially to relate to Him.

We, that is every human being. In a very real sense, we are his children. Even if we haven't been adopted into his family yet. We are his creation. He owns us.

The world is the Lord's and everything in it, everyone as well.

So we're the only thing in all of creation that John 3:16 refers to when it says, God so loved the world. He doesn't love the system of the world. He loves the people who make up the population of the world. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life.

In Psalm 139 and I'm going to go there, you can follow along if you'd like to.

But in Psalm 139, David recounts how God's knowledge of us is infinite. In verse 17 David says this how precious also are your thoughts toward me, O God. How vast is the sum of them. If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with you.

Wow, that sounds like any parent toward a child, doesn't it? My kids are always on my mind. I mean, my youngest one is early 30s, my eldest is early 40s, and they're just always on my mind.

But God treats us that way. We are always on his mind. How vast is the sum of them? His point, David's point, is this, that we are ever in God's thoughts. God doesn't stop considering us.

In Psalm 40, swing over to Psalm 40 for a minute and verse 5 it says this many O Lord, my God, are the wonders which you have done, and your thoughts toward us. There is none to compare with you. If I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count. I couldn't count how much God thinks about me. And there's a lot of us for him to think about.

We are ever in God's thoughts, and God cares about and cares for every one of us. Psalm 138 I'm just building an argument here. I know we're jumping around a bunch and it seems like I'm talking a lot and haven't quite gotten to the point yet. Well, this may be the point. Psalm 138:8 says this.

The Lord will accomplish what concerns me, your everlasting. Oh, I'm sorry. Your kindness, O Lord, is everlasting. Do not forsake the the works of your hands. We are the works of his hands.

Yes, God loves us. We are always on his mind and in his thoughts. He made us. He sustains us. He guides us.

He cares for us.

He causes his sun to shine on us. He gives us breath. He gives us food. He sustains the pattern of the season in order to make our work fruitful he pours out his love on us, has rescued us from the penalty of our sins, shed his own blood to save our souls from death. He set us free from slavery to sin, and from the penalty of sin, which is death.

God cares for us. Which of these things would we not do for our own family if we could? Which of them would we not purchase for them if they were for sale? There's just so much about how God cares for us that's reflected on how we care for our family. It's amazing to me, you may have heard of a study that we've spoken of recently called Shepherding youg Family.

Unfortunately, it appears that the timing was not quite right. And so we've suspended that ministry for a while. We've postponed it. In the meantime, I want to give you the idea of what a conversation about shepherding our family might look like. So I get to talk this morning about anything I want, and I'm going to talk about shepherding your family.

So this morning, I will be outlining some of the content of what that ministry looks like, shepherding your family. And I'll do it in hopes that it'll resonate a little bit with you and might stir up some interest or curiosity, some desire to enter into a conversation about these things. So what I'm going to do is roll 11 sermons into this morning.

You good till 4? You better clear the evening anyway. No.

Okay. I won't be able to flesh out 10 of those messages. So what I'll do is just give you the title and kind of what they talk about so that we can get out of here well before four.

Okay. So when it comes to shepherding your family, you should remember this first. So this would be like point number one, after God cares for us because we're his family. Point number one is put God first. Put God first in the book of Deuteronomy.

We've already seen that God expects us to have him on our mind right here in front of us all the time. We. He expects us to give him first place in our life. And along with that expectation, God makes a declaration. He declares that, you know what?

If you focus on Me and you don't forget me, and you keep the things that I've commanded you, I'll just bless you.

That's an amazing thing. God declares that there are benefits to putting him first. In fact, the whole rest of Deuteronomy after chapter six that we've read, the whole rest of the book is Moses recounting the blessings of obeying the Law.

He talks repeatedly about how God will give them peace, keep their enemies at bay. Make the seasons follow in order. Give the rain at the appropriate time, early and late. Make the snow fall in the winter, make your fields productive, give you enough food, make your flocks productive, give you plenty, so that you can not just live well and healthy, but you can also earn an income. He talks about all these things, but he also, in the book of Deuteronomy, warns them repeatedly, not saying if, but saying when.

When you turn away from me, he says, because you will turn away from me. When you turn away from me. All those blessings, they're going to get reversed. Your enemies will overwhelm you. They'll take the produce from your fields.

You'll have times of drought, times of famine, slaves.

And I'll reverse all of that again. So keep God first. And I think when we're talking about our families, what we're talking about is just nurture your own spiritual life. We're talking about deepening discipleship. Learn about God.

Love God.

You know, there are some things God says, don't do these things. If you do them, that's sin. There are other things God says, do these things because if you don't do them, that sin. But in between is almost all of life. And about those things, God says, this is where wisdom lies.

Get wisdom and I will bless when you act wisely.

Deepen your own discipleship. Learn about God. Make yourself. This is not a word, I think, but make yourself blessable by God. Okay, now I want to move on to point number two.

Why shepherd your family? I want to move to the New Testament. Because so far I've talked about the Old Testament a lot. And we recognize that we are not the nation of Israel. We are the church.

We are the New Covenant people. So I want to read from the book of Colossians 1:28.

Now, Paul has been writing, and he talks about the Excellencies of Christ. And he says this. We proclaim him, admonishing every person and teaching every person with all wisdom, so that we may present every person complete in Christ. For this purpose, I labor striving according to his power, which mightily works within me. So there's more than just I love my family at stake here.

Why shepherd your family? Because God's perspective is he wants us to present one another to him. Complete, perfect.

Let me just state it differently. Fully developed disciples of Jesus Christ. That's what God desires for us. So shepherding our family is a matter of urging one another along in our discipleship and you know what? It might sound like we're saying parents have to teach your children.

Because after all, that's what Deuteronomy said. But it's bigger than that.

If we have God's heart on this matter, then we will nurture and shepherd the people in our household. No matter who we are in the household, we could be the smallest child. And if we have God's heart, we'll ask Mommy and Daddy or brother and sister or aunt and uncle or Nana and Papa, why did you do that? Doesn't God say this and seek each other's development as a disciple of Jesus Christ? Third, feed yourself first.

Oh, yeah, you're going to have this desire to teach others, to make sure the rest of your family is walking along. But first, feed yourself first. It's about our discipleship. Our discipleship that becomes contagious. So that was also the first point when I said, keep God first.

It's keep him first in your life, but focus. Do the work necessary to understand his word. Study it. Show yourself. Approved.

That's what Paul says to Timothy, the fourth point. Who is the shepherd of the household? This is kind of repetitive, but we are all shepherds of the household. Now, I said, you know that we're going to go beyond the parent and child relationship right into spouses. So the husband is the shepherd over the wife.

The wife is the shepherd over the husband. They're shepherds over the children. The children are shepherds over them. We're shepherds over the previous generations. And we're also shepherds out here in the household of God.

We're all shepherds. That's a great message for the end of the series we just finished, which was titled what Right? Forged for Ministry. We're all forged for ministry like Paul. And we deal with the circumstances of life.

They bring us to shepherd our own households. Number five, the place of prayer. Wow, that should almost go without saying, shouldn't it? That prayer holds a huge place in the training of our children. More than that, prayer holds a place in seeking God's wisdom to lead one another toward being like Jesus.

Number six. I took this, I said this this way because it's just a direct command of scripture. Husbands, love your wives. Now, yeah, that's a direct command of scripture. But you know what?

There's just nobody who's exempt from that. We just have to love each other. We just have to. It's God's will for us. We are to bear one another's burdens, right?

We're to rejoice with those who rejoice, we're to weep. With those who weep, we're to encourage one another, build one another up. We just. There's, hey, we're all to love each other in our households, in our extended families, in our church. Family number seven, Teach your children.

Okay, now this is not the same as general kind of, you know, guide them in their discipleship, but this is. Make a point of telling your children, this is God's heart. This is what God expects. Make a point of bringing them to scripture and teaching them how to read it. But you know what?

Not just your children, that's what Bible studies are for. That's what men's ministry is supposed to be about. That's what the ladies Bible study is supposed to be about. These are the things we do for each other. Because my father loves you and I love you.

Number eight. Guard against the influence of the world. You know, the world is out there. Finding every opportunity to conflict with God's revealed wisdom.

We need one another so that we can recognize the lies that are coming from the enemy and put God's truth in their place. That's part of discipleship. Number nine. Discipline is training, not punishment. A lot of times we think of discipline as punishment.

When things go wrong, we need to correct that. Yeah, that's true, but we don't necessarily have to punish it. What we need to do is coach and mentor. In right thinking, God said, keep my commandments and I'll bless you. So we need to focus on right thinking, God's revealed word, the application of knowledge through wisdom.

These are all the ways that we can discipline ourselves and our children. One of the things that I find really interesting, and it's a big deal in medicine today, also in mental health, is brain plasticity. Big word. What it means is your brain can change.

If person is going to break a bad habit. Instead of telling themselves, let's say the bad habit is writing on the wall with crayon. Because everybody has that problem.

The bad habit is I write on the walls with the crayon and I want to break that habit. So every time I'm tempted to write on the walls with a crayon, I tell myself, don't write on the wall. And what that does is that reinforces the desire to write on the wall. Because when we do it or when we think about it or when we talk to ourself about it, it digs a deeper groove into our brain. The way to break a bad habit is to replace it with something else.

So that every time the idea comes around, hey, make a pretty picture on the wall with a crayon. I say, no, I'm going to clean the litter box instead.

Or whatever else needs to be done. Just anything. Anything that is wise and good and needs to be done and is honoring to God and keeps you from sin. So when the temptation comes, we don't just say, no, I'm resisting. Pushing against it, pushing against it.

And we're like, now I'm going to deflect here. Go a different way. And what that does is it carves a different pathway in our brain.

And it only takes a matter of a couple of weeks for this to become the preferred behavior, because our brain changes.

That's what discipline is about. It's about going the right way. It's not about avoiding the wrong way. It's about when the wrong opportunity presents itself. Go the right way.

And so discipline is training. We're training our minds, we're training our hearts, we're training our wills, and we're training toward the right thing. We're not just punishing the bad thing, because heaven knows there's enough kids out there and I'm one of them and I'm way past that stage that I just might say, the heck with you. I'm doing it anyway. And we're all that person.

We're all that person.

So train, not punish, Teach, admonish, Put on display. Live it out in your life. What's the right thing to do when I struggle? Be honest.

Follow up with each other. Coach, mentor, etc. And then number 10, when it comes to shepherding our children, not just our children, shepherding our family, there is one thing that is absolutely indispensable, and that is infinite grace.

You know, it's just way too easy for me to get frustrated and just make some snide comment. My wife's the beneficiary of that. Often I get frustrated. I see things incorrectly, and I go the wrong way and the people around me suffer. I need to exhibit grace.

And we all need to have grace extended to us because we all mess up, every single one of us.

Not a lot, just, you know, a few thousand times a day, but we do well. Okay, those would be ten individual sermons that. That I could preach, but I'm not going to today. Instead, I'm going to stick with the one thing that we are God's family, that he has taught us what we need to know. He's written down what we need to have.

He's put his spirit in us. He's constantly Showing us the way of wisdom. He flat out says, if anybody lacks wisdom, ask God, who gives wisdom freely and doesn't hold back. I mean, why aren't we like the wise guys of the world? Not the wise guys.

Why are we not the wise people that the world looks up to? We ought to be God in His wisdom.

Wisdom without, well, those 10 families. And if this is true, that we are God's family and he's given us all the necessary tools and even set the example that we should follow. So what?

So what? Well, here's the so what?

I've resisted the temptation to say, get off your butt. Instead, I'm going a different direction. So, in a word, just engage. Engage the process of shepherding anybody. Somebody, yourself, your spouse, your children, your parents, your neighbors.

It doesn't matter if they're born again or not. You can shepherd them. You can shepherd them toward thinking differently than they've ever thought before. You shepherd them toward understanding that God's ways are wise. Shepherd them toward an understanding and even show them evidence that when we act wisely, God blesses that blessing.

It's exactly the same concept as happy.

When we act wisely and follow what God's revealed about himself, he makes us happy, content, satisfied, he gives abundantly, etc. Etc. So what? So engagement. Just engage the process.

Have you ever wondered why God leaves us on the earth once we come to Jesus, for the forgiveness of our sin, once we're born again, why does he leave us here? With all of the pain, with all of the agony, with all of the suffering, with disease and with persecution, why does he leave us here? It's for them.

It's for them. It's for our children to grow into. It's for our neighbors to be brought into this family. God's interested in growing his family.

So in a word, engage. Engage. Across the street, across the fence, in the backyard, to the left and the right, engage at work.

Mm. Engage at the checkout line when you're buying groceries. Simple. We and everybody else were made to have fellowship with God. And we are responsible for bringing others to Him.

That's wisdom. They don't know it, we do. Let's introduce them to our Savior. It's about making disciples. More disciples.

Better disciples. More disciples. More disciples. In America, we've spent the last hundred years figuring out how to make better disciples. Well, let's make more disciples and then turn them into better disciples.

That's what shepherding is about. Shepherding our family is the most effective, effective way to introduce others to Jesus. Now we can talk about all of those things. We can talk about those 10 things, and I'd love to engage that conversation with you. So if any of this resonates with you, if any of these ideas are things you'd like to sit down and have a conversation about, ask your questions and say, how do we.

Then we can all talk about it. We can learn how to do it. We can explore.

John 1:9 13, says, There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every person. He was in the world. The world was made through him. The world did not know him. He came to his own, and those who were his own did not receive him.

But as many as received him, he gave the right to become children of God. Now, that's a whole different kind of children of God than He created us. And so in a real sense, we're his children. This is an entirely different kind of children of God. This is the one that comes after we receive him, who is the light of the world.

For those of us who have not yet received him, we proclaim him and admonish every person and teach every person with all wisdom so that we may present every person complete in Christ.

How was it done?

We're about to enter into communion and do what Jesus said to do. He said, as often as you do this, do it in remembrance of me. Remember me.

Remember me to your family. Those were my dad's parting request.

Remember me to your children.