Love God Alone

So I'm told that effective and eloquent preachers, they always have a good introduction. You got to hook them so that they really listen. So here goes. This is really important this morning. It's very, very important that you listen. I could explain and defend, one from experience this morning. You have no idea how many distractions have already taken place between 8 a.m. and this moment now. Not only was the songs need to be changed, which is unusual, but I was on my phone for a good hour just trying to fix things, pieces that were falling out of place, and then above everything else, there were no donuts this morning. More seriously, beyond experience. Where we're at in our study, we're in the book of Deuteronomy. We're in Deuteronomy 6. We're on page 151. If you're using a pew Bible, if you want that Bible, please take it. If you don't have a Bible and you don't want it, please take it and read it anyway. It's very important where we're at. We just finished the Ten Commandments. God's law, God's expectation, God's explanation of who we're supposed to be. Now Moses, the pastor of Israel, the pastor seeking to take that next generation in so that they'll be obedient, so that they can enjoy the blessing of God, he's telling them what those Ten Commandments mean. The Ten Commandments aren't insignificant. They're extremely important. Now he's telling us what it means, how to live them. If that weren't enough, just where we're at in the text, after the Ten Commandments, we're gonna hear more about what they mean. We can look to the Gospels. We can hear Jesus being asked, what's the greatest commandment? What are the most important words that God has said? It's right here in our text. The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord with your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is important. I joked earlier, but this is important. the greatest commandment that God has given us, the greatest words according to Jesus. We need to listen and focus. This morning we'll be looking through, we'll be getting in chapter five, verse 32. And then our first point is this. Listen to and obey God. Hear the word. You shall be careful, therefore, to do as the Lord your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess. Now this is the commandment, the statutes, and the rules that the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you. that you may do them in the land to which you are going over to possess, 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. 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 the land flowing with milk and honey. If we were to look at this, chapter five, verse 32 and 33, first thing we see, God commands us. God has spoken. If you were listening and you want to go back and look at it, command or statute, same thing. It's mentioned 10 times. In those few verses, it's going to be mentioned more. What God has said for us to do is important. The God who has created us, the God who has delivered these people from Egypt out of slavery, who's now their king and made them his special people, he's saying, Do these commandments. Listen. So the first thing we see is that God speaks. It's an authoritative truth that he impresses upon us. Then we look at chapter six, verses one and two. This is the command, Moses said, that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you. We see here Moses is, he's the pastor. He's leading the nation of Israel to obey God, to trust God. Now, this is the second generation. If you haven't been with us, the first generation that was delivered out of Egypt, they grumbled on their way out of Egypt. They complained to God constantly right before the Red Sea was parted. They complained when they were hungry. They complained when they were thirsty. They kept putting God to the test because they did not trust Him. They kept saying, we had it better. when we were slaves under Pharaoh, then with you, God? And because they would not obey, because they would not praise him, because they would not thank him or honor him, God let them die in the wilderness. Now we're in the second generation and Moses is giving the law the second time. That's why it's called Deuteronomy, the second law, the second giving of the law. Moses is trying to lead them to obey the commandments. And so he gives them. And we should hear, this is us. Verse three. Hear, therefore, O Israel. Listen. God is speaking. Your God is not like the other gods. He's not dumb, he's not mute. He's speaking. Hear, O Israel. and be careful to do them, be careful. It's an intentional obedience that it may go well with you, that you may multiply greatly, that all the blessing of God would be on you, that the land will flow with milk and honey, it's just going to, the earth is gonna bubble forth God's blessing for you. There's a few things we can say about God's people from these few verses. First, God claims His own people. It's a mark upon God's people that He says, you're my people. That's what He said in Egypt. Of all the people, of all the nations, why did God choose this nation? We'll see that next week. But God says, you're my people. Then He says, do this. He claims us, then He commands us. The first two marks that makes a people God's people, He claims them and He commands them. Now the hard part, the third mark of God's people, they listen to Him. He claims them, He commands them, they listen to Him. The fourth mark, they obey Him. He claims them, he commands them, they listen to him, they obey him. If only it were that simple. Let's move on to the heart of our passage where we'll spend most of our time this morning, verses four to nine. As Brian said, verse four, it is a unique and special passage for every Israelite. 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 doorpost of your house and on your gates. This is arguably the most important verse in the Old Testament. As Christians are to John 3.16, right, a passage that you can easily go to and recite to define what we believe, the most distinctive truths that define who we are, an Israelite would go to Deuteronomy 6.4. Israel, you have one God, it's the Lord. This is the prayer they would say at night, the prayer they would say in the morning. Ideally, what you want is this to be the first thing you think about in the morning, the last thing you think about in the evening. They call it the Shema because that's the Hebrew word for here. So it's simply, it's called the Shema because that's the first word of the verse. This is important. This is an important verse for Israel. Obviously, the verse, these few words, they've been analyzed and overanalyzed and analyzed some more and then overanalyzed. There's numerous interpretations. It's amazing, the few little words, how many different people have come up with something different about them. So let me try to make the point very clear. There is one God. He's Yahweh. He's one. He's only your God. He alone is your God. It makes amazing truths about God. First, the one people, they're united in the one God. Remember the covenant formula that we saw in Genesis and Exodus? I will be your God, you will be my people. Hear the Shema, the Lord our God. It's not because we looked up and said, I'm gonna choose you. Out of all the gods, I think you're the best God. It's because God said, I am calling you out from among the nations. He has made a, the one true God has made a claim on a special people. We see that he's one. Most of all, the singularness points to his right to be worshiped alone. It's pretty simple, it's pretty clear. There's one God, honor him alone. There's one God, honor him alone. Now, it's so simple and it's so clear, I should just be able to stop, right? Period. I'll sit down, we'll sing another song, we'll leave. Why isn't the simplicity and the clarity that there's one God, you worship him alone, why is it more complicated? What's the problem? It's because we are so sinful. We need constant reminders of this most important identity-forming truth. We forget God so easily. We're always being pressed from outside with temptations that desire to redirect our worship away from Him. We're created and designed to worship. It may not feel like it, but you're always worshiping. We are designed to worship. We are always worshiping. The question is, who are you worshiping? Think about the different arenas of worship. The mall is a place for worship. We go in, we exchange goods. There's an order of service. There's a mall map. There's your shopping list. It makes you feel better when you make that purchase. The sporting event. Nothing says worship like a good sporting event. You've got the team list. Think about the adrenaline going through your veins. The way you're emotionally changed win or loss. We're always worshiping. We're always gathering to worship. The problem is we're usually gathering in the wrong way to worship the wrong one. You see, idolatry isn't just when you physically bow down before something. Idolatry is when you desire something out of its proper place. We can make idols out of some of the best things God's given us. A spouse, a child, a job, a church, a friend. All these good things can become idols when they're taken out of their proper place. When you expect from your spouse things that only Christ can fulfill for you. When you expect peace and content and rest from your child or your job or your friends, you're just not gonna get it. You're setting yourself up and setting those relationships up for failure. We can obviously make bad things idols. Our anger, our lust, our coveting, they become God's when we choose to serve them. They become our master. So who do you bow down before? That's a very literal way of thinking about idols, but what do you think about? What do you talk about? What stirs the emotion of love and excitement? See, the wise life is this, one that has its loves properly prioritized. We were created for love. We're hardwired to love. As the great philosopher Elmer Fudd says, we're woken for love in all the wrong places. That's funny, but it's true. We're designed for one love that is truly satisfying. And we're trying to find that satisfaction in every direction, in every place but God. He calls us to worship Him alone. He calls us to recognize that He alone is God. The greatest threat to this is left thinking we're our God. But He, calls us to worship Him alone. The command continues. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. The one God, love Him with all of your being. We can see here the heart, the soul, the strength. I believe what we're hearing here is it begins in the most central part of your being and it spreads out to the rest. The heart is usually understood as the place where, the seat of thoughts, where we think. The heart here in the way the Hebrews understood it. It'll be where you think. The soul will be the place of desire, your strength, your resources. Now this makes sense. What you think about, you're going to desire. What you desire, you're going to do. That makes sense. That explains the reality that we know from our own experience. What we think about will affect what we desire, which is going to affect the way we spend our resources, our strength. It moves from those inner to the whole. What God is telling us. What God is telling us is we must think the most of Him. We must desire Him the most. We must use all of our resources to love Him. He's worthy of our best and He's worthy of our all. Now, I also feel the need to define what love is. It says love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your strength, all of what you think about, all your desires, all your resources. Our culture has really ruined the word love. We usually think about it as something we fall into. Something that impresses itself upon you. Now the way love should be understood is the way God defines it. The way God defines is he looks at us and we're completely unlovely and he says, I'm going to set my affections on you. I'm going to think about you contrary to the way you are. I'm going to desire you in a way you don't deserve and I'm going to act towards you in a way you certainly don't deserve. He should see us and think, what a rotten, gross rebel. but instead he looks at us and he sees his son. He should look at us and desire to exercise his wrath, but instead he sees his son over us and he loves us. Instead of exercising judgment and wrath, he blesses. To love is to make a clear commitment. Love is a choice, it's not an emotion. Real love is not a choice, it's not an emotion, it is a choice. It's an intentional choosing to set your affections and desires and set your strength toward someone else. This is what God says. The greatest command is for you to love the most lovely being. Is that burdensome? That's what God desires. He knows He's the most fulfilling and satisfying lover of who we are. He is the most satisfying one who we can love. That's what He commands. Love me because I designed you to love me. Love me because I designed you to be fulfilled by my love. The problem, again, is our hearts. We seek to love everything but God. I also want to point out here that it's not just that you love God more than everything else. You love him completely all the time. You love him in every possible way. See, our temptation is to do this. Well, as men especially, we like to compartmentalize. Right? So is the time you're going to commit to loving God the hour or two hours or four hours or five hours you're going to spend here with the people of God this morning? And then you're gonna love football the next three hours. Then you're gonna love a meal for a good 30 minutes and maybe love your children for a little while and then love sleep. Is that the way we think? No, we're tempted to think that way. This is the way you're supposed to think about it. We're gonna wake up and we're gonna love God. We're gonna love Him while we eat breakfast. That means we love Him by the way we eat breakfast. We're gonna love Him when we come and gather as a church and that determines how we're going to love one another as we gather. We're gonna love Him as we leave. And whatever we do the rest of the day, it's meant to, you're designed to love Him with whatever you're going to do. And that's not just speaking of today. It's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. See, every aspect of life should be marked by our love of God. We love God in everything we do. Not only that, but our love for God should change the way we love things. Every other love should be marked by the way we love God. So husbands, let's just think about our wives for a moment, just to give a little sample of how we can think about how every aspect of life should be changed by our love for God. So why do you love your wife? Maybe it's because you found her lovely, you find her lovely. Maybe we go a step further, we say we love her because God said to love her. There's a duty to love, so I appreciate that. But we should go a little further. Why do we love our wife? Because God has given her to us. She's our responsibility. I appreciate that particular aspect of love. You've got the duty, God commanded me, but she's also, she's been handed to me by God, so there's a responsibility there. Both are good. But really, why should you love your wife? It's because God loved you. That's the real undergirding reason. It's a devotion to God. Because He loved you, you love Him, and therefore you obey His commandments. Therefore you love those He's put under your responsibility. It begins with God's love for you. You're responding to His love for you. Therefore you love Him, and it changes the way you love others. Because a Christian husband is supposed to love sacrificially as Christ has loved him. It changes the way we love. You say, I love my husband. Well, does it change the way you love him? Do you obey the command of Paul that says, respect him as he deserves? That's not actually what Paul says, is it? If you love your husband, you respect him as the Lord, as to the Lord. It defines the way you treat your husband. Your love for your husband will be changed by your love for God, because Christ says, love your husband by respecting him as to the Lord. You may say, I love my parents, but do you love them according to God and the bigger picture of God? Do you show them deference? Do you honor them because God said you are called to honor them? They deserve it because they said they deserve it. You say, I love my friends. Well, that means you laid down your life for them. Do you love your church? Well, that means you consider them and their interests as more important than your own. See, love is not this fuzzy feeling. If you're in any of those relationships, you know a fuzzy feeling doesn't get you to any of those places. It's feeling the full weight that God loves you and has called you to a higher love. Love God. This should order our lives. The way we love God should put everything else in its proper place. Let me press this question on you. When you ask yourself, do you love God enough? What's your answer? Do you love God enough? Thank you. The answer's always no. The answer is always no. The lines when I surveyed the Wondrous Cross, the last verse, were the whole realm of nature mine that were an offering far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. His love is so great and our love is so little. His love is so faithful and ours so fickle and failing. If your resolution this year is to love God, love your spouse, love your kids, love your church, love your neighbor, if your resolution for that this year, there's only one way that will be accomplished. You have to become more convinced and captured by God's love for you. The only way you will love anyone else, specifically God, more is to be more consumed and captivated by His love for you. So the prescription, meditate on the cross. Meditate on the truth that the Father did not spare His own Son. The one God who deserves all worship said, I'm going to pursue you while you hate me, I'm going to love you. That 1 Corinthians 8, 6 passage is really amazing if you look at it. Paul splits the Shema that says there's one God and he says there's two. There's one God, there's one Lord. It's the Father and the Son. We can go back to creation and it makes sense. He says there's one God from whom all things exist and one Lord through whom all things exist. Well, how did God create? He spoke his word. We know from John 1, Jesus Christ is that word. The Father is the from, and the Son is the through. Everything that exists is made from them and through them. They are the one God. Now, as Christians, we confess something that's very difficult to understand. There's one God, and that one God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Now, you should be mesmerized by that. That's difficult. I really challenge you and I hope you will want to wrestle with the doctrine of the Trinity all day today and the rest of your life. But if you treat it like a math equation, you're not going to get anywhere. The fact that God says I'm one and there's three of us, that's difficult. And that's why the Bible's so important. We believe what God says regardless of how difficult it is. But this is the way I want you to think about it. God designed you to love him and to be loved by him. He saw that because of our sin, we only hated him and one another. And so the father in his love for us sent his son to die for those who hated him. That son obeyed the father out of love for him and love for us and let us nail him to the cross. That Father and that Son, they sent the Holy Spirit so that the life that He purchased for us on the cross would be applied to our hearts. This is what's amazing about the love of God. It works towards us so that we can be changed and therefore love God. That's what's amazing about the love of God. It acts towards us. It changes us so that we can love God. If you want to think about God today, if you want your heart to be formed, your thoughts to be formed, Think about the fact that Christ died in our place so that we will no longer be judged for our sin, but we're now forgiven. Verse six, and these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. They will be on your heart. They need to be remembered, memorized, and contemplated. Now, why the heart? Why do they need to be on the heart? As Calvin said, the heart's the idol factor. The heart's where worship begins. The heart is where worship begins, and the heart that we have as children of Adam, children fallen, is a heart that loves the wrong thing. Remember what Jesus said about the heart. It's what comes out of the heart that defiles you. The heart needs correcting. The heart leads us and it needs correcting. The heart leads us and needs correcting. It needs trained, it needs redirected. Our love for God starts with God changing us, changing our hearts. We've been delivered, now that heart needs to be transformed. It really reminds us, it should remind us of Paul's language. In Ephesians 4 and Colossians 2, After you've been delivered, Paul says, put these things on, take these things off. He says, put off malice, put on love. Put off coveting, put on thankfulness. Put off the words that tear down, put on words that build up. Put off slander and anger, put on a tender heart. Forgiveness, as Christ forgave you. See, slander begins here. It comes out here and it hurts, but it begins here. The anger begins here, but the tender heartedness, it also begins here. The forgiveness begins here. The heart is unhealthy. And while it's been made new by the Holy Spirit, we have to put off our old sinfulness and put on the new character that God demands of us. We must put off in order to put on. Now then notice where we go next, verse seven. We're going to now outward expressions. God is one, love him alone, put it on your heart. Then you will teach them. You'll teach them at home. You'll teach them on your way in the neighborhood. You'll teach them in the morning, you'll teach them in the evening. We could go on and it would sound like a Dr. Seuss book. But it's supposed to be all-encompassing. Every part of life is about teaching. Think about it. It's what you think about. Therefore, it's what you talk about. Look at verse seven. Teach them to your children. Impress them is actually a better translation. Impress them. Impose, press them into your children. as you're sitting at home, as you're going about in your house, on your way, evening and morning. The point is you're never taking a break. It's all the time in every part of life. Verse eight tells us, put them on your hands so that when you're working, you know you're working for the Lord. Put them here so that whenever you're looking at, you know you're looking at it for the Lord. Put it on your doorpost and on your gate. That's pretty amazing, because it's telling everybody there's always a secret guest in this house, and it's God. The real head of this house is God Almighty, so that whatever is being said or done in this home, God is the secret guest. It's done before him as worship, and he determines what will be done in this home. Notice the progression. It starts with the heart, then in the home, then as we go about. From the heart to the home, and then when we go about. Brothers and sisters, he's describing here a utopia, perfect society. He's talking to the nation of Israel on how to be the perfect nation that God desires you to be. The good news is, we will all get to enjoy this nation. When we die, when Christ returns. We have to ask ourselves, however, now, how are we to think about these things today? We know that Israel failed as a nation. We can go to Jeremiah 31. Even though I was as a father to them, they broke my covenant, God says. Even though I was as a father, they broke my covenant. Because Israel failed as God's son, in a way, God sent forth his own son, born of a virgin, born under the law. Jesus Christ came to accomplish what Israel could not. He was the perfect obedient son that obeyed every law and fulfilled every law so that when he died, he died in the place of everybody who ever believed in him so they could be saved. Jesus fulfills the obedience that God requires. Now what this means for us as a church is that Christ is our head and we're now called to be the holy nation that God desires us to be. If you're a child of God, you are holy. You're set apart. What God desires for us to do now is to obey his commands so that we actually live like it. Remember back in chapter four, God said, all the nations are gonna come to this one nation if you obey my commandments, and they're gonna say what God was so near, what wisdom and righteousness ever existed. As we are now the people of God under Christ, what do people say when they come and see a church? Do they see wisdom and righteousness? Do they see a God so near? As we think about this as a church, I want us to see the same pattern exist. We are called to be a holy people together. It starts with our hearts, then our homes, then the church. It starts with our hearts, which turn our homes, which affect our church. We all tend to want to prioritize one of these. I'm an individual Christian. I'm a heart Christian. It won't affect my home, it won't affect my church. I just do what I wanna do. It doesn't bother anybody else. I don't wanna get in anybody else's way. I'm gonna be my individual Christian. Or the other one, it prioritizes the home. It's all about the family. I'm gonna just give myself over to the family. It doesn't matter about what God says for the church. It's just the sacred institution that God first created. It's just about the family. Well, there's, it's all about the church. We will sacrifice individually and as a family for whatever the church says to do. We can all misprioritize and not align each of these in their proper place. Starts with the heart. Are we gonna have a heart that's committed to loving God? If we have a heart that's committed to loving God, we're gonna start having a family and a home that glorifies God. When we have that family and a home, we're gonna start being a family that's involved in the church. The problem is you can't have one of these three without the others. All three of these were meant to align with one another. Think about it. If your heart's sour, your home life's gonna be sour, and so is your life at church. If your heart's aligned, and you only focus on the family, you're not investing in the body, and you can't fulfill that Titus 2 command, that older women are investing in younger women, and the whole design of the church is to help invest in the family. The whole purpose of the family is to be part of that bigger household of God. God wants a people to be set apart that have nothing in common but Him. It's a new kind of community where we're teaching one another. So let me focus on the one characteristic I want us to think about, being teachable. Because as we come together as the people of God, the only way we're going to be united is if we're all teachable from this one rule of faith. This has to determine what we believe, our heart, what we desire, our soul, What we do, our strength. In order to be a disciple, that's what it requires. In order to have a godly home, that's what it requires. In order to be a godly church, that's what it requires. The church is so much more difficult, as John said in his announcements. Every kind of person's welcome here, from every kind of different background, as long as your Lord and Savior is Jesus Christ. But boy, do we have a lot of background. We all carry our traditions. The only way we're going to be united is by all submitting to the one rule of faith. It means we deny ourselves to follow Christ. We all want that beautiful picture in Ephesians, being knit together as one body, being built up into the head. That means we're all submitted to the one scripture, that one spirit gave us to be united under. It's a beautiful vision. The same vision here is the same as Ephesians. There's one God. He saved you. Worship Him alone. There's one God. Love Him with all your heart, with everything you do. Let it affect every part of your life. When you wake, when you go to bed, when you walk, when you're at home, constantly have the reminders before you. This is a beautiful vision, not for a nation anymore, but for God's people. Let's look to verses 10 through 25. Hear the word of the Lord. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord, I'm sorry, I started in verse four, verse 10. And when the Lord your God brings you, notice it's a conditional here. They're outside the promised land, they're looking into the promised land. 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 the great and good cities that you did not build, and the houses full of the good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards, and olive trees that you did not plant. When you eat and are full, God promised, and notice repetition, you're going to be blessed for somebody else's labor. Somebody else has done all the work and God is going to give you the blessing. When you enter into that land that I promised, that I'm giving you, that is such a great blessing, then take care lest you forget the Lord who brought you to the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery. It is the Lord your God that you shall fear. Him you shall serve. I'm gonna pause here for a second again. The word slavery and serve are the same word in Hebrew? He brought you out of the slavery of the Egyptians so that you would serve him. There you don't have a master that's beating you. You don't have a tyrant who hates you. You have a God who loves you and has given himself over to you. You should not go after other gods, the gods of the people who are around you. For the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God. lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you and he destroy you off the face of the earth. You shall not put the Lord your God to the test as you tested him at Massa. You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his testimonies and his statutes which he has commanded you. And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord. that it may go well with you, that you may go in and take possession of the good land the Lord swore to give to your fathers by thrusting out all your enemies from before you as the Lord has promised. Notice it begins with God's promise. He wants to bless his people. God desires to bless his promised people. They need to be careful to remember him and his promise and his blessing. Be careful to remember, be careful to keep, lest you test God. Now what's interesting about the test it refers to is Israel was thirsty and they said, God, you must not love us. Because they were going without, they questioned God. He's now saying, from going without you tested me. What's going to happen when I give you everything you ever dreamed of? What's going to happen when you're full? from the milk and the honey you did not labor for? Are you going to praise another God? Are you going to forget me? Are you going to obey me? Here we have to realize how our hearts are so sinful. We'll complain when we don't have and then we'll forget when we do. The heart so easily forgets. Look at 20 through 25. When your son asks you in the time to come, what is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules of 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 we might, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes to fear the Lord, our God, for our good always, that I may preserve us alive as we are this day. And it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to do all these commandments before the Lord, our God, as he has commanded us. Does anybody else's children play baptism at home? Maybe not, all right. My daughter's favorite game is to play baptism. I don't know if that was a pastor's daughter thing or that was something that you all do, okay. So my daughter loves baptisms. We could watch YouTubes of people giving their testimony and doing baptisms all day. She wants me to baptize her, you know, not really, okay. She wants to play, she wants to share her testimony and then I'll go through the motions and it's just the most exciting game she could possibly imagine. It leaves me with a bit of a theological conundrum, but she's my daughter, so I do whatever she wants on some level. There's no water involved. But think about it. They were to have memorials set up to make the children ask, what? What is that? Why are you doing that? Why did Nancy, why did Chico get wet today? What was all that about? Why did he say something? And then he got the in and the out. What's going on? God set up memorials for us to make our kids ask, what, what does that mean? You see, son, you are dead in your sins. So Jesus Christ came to die for you so that when you are buried Your old life is washed away. Your old self and its sins, they're washed away. And then when you come up out of the grave, you're given a new life in Jesus Christ. It's a memorial so that we can teach our children that a redemption we've received. The Lord's supper, He gave His body. It was crushed for our iniquity. He gave His blood to wash His white as snow. We have these beautiful memorials that mark the church. We need beautiful memorials that mark the home. Scripture passages on the wall. Ten commandments written down. What are we setting up to make our kids wonder? What happened? Give them the inquisitive mind that's teachable so we can tell them the truth of God's deliverance. What are we doing to remind one another? Because quite frankly, here's the truth. Whatever we're going to talk about in the next 30 minutes to an hour is what we love the most. We're going to talk about God's love for us, how we can love Him. Is there something more interesting? What are our kids here prioritizing with their time and energy and conversation? The goal is to build up a community that's constantly reminding one another because we're constantly forgetful. That's the beauty of what's happening in chapter six, 20 through 25. Set up memorials so we're remembering constantly what God has done for us. Will you pray with me? Father, we come before you. as forgetful, fickle, and faithless. We come before you as people who have failed in every way to obey any of these commandments. And so we simply bow down before you and we praise you as we sung before, Lord, your mercy. Let it be the theme of our song as we look to the law, we see how we fail, so we can look to you and see how your mercy is abundant. We praise you, oh God, for showing us mercy, for loving us when we did not deserve it so that we can love you. Help us, Lord. Turn our heart so they meditate upon you fully and completely. Set apart our desire so they love you fully. Help us to be willing and eager to make every resource that is ours from you meant to give you glory. Help us to give it over to you, God. our strength, our gifts, our talents, every resource, Lord, every action. May the world see a life that's changed and a family that's changed and a church that's made up of changed people striving for your glory by your grace. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.