What is our most basic calling in life? Let me put it another way—why are you here? There is a lot of talk in the church today about finding our purpose in life. What is God’s purpose for me? What is His will for my life? Why has God put me here? And people look all over the place to find the answer to that question. They look to personality tests. They look to different ways of finding out what their gifts and talents are. They spend time and effort on trying to look at different programs in the church and seeing where they might fit. But there’s a problem with those methods. Because God doesn’t always call people to do things that they are equipped to do. As a matter of fact, sometimes God gets the most glory out of taking people who are completely incapable of doing what He calls them to do. As the saying goes—God doesn’t call the equipped. He equips the called. So if your gifts and talents can’t tell you what your purpose in life is, what can? The Bible can. You see, God’s will for you is not really the mystery that we like to make it out to be. We like to think of it like a game of hide and go seek. God has His will for you and it’s up to you to find it if you can. But God’s will for your life is not a mystery. He tells you what it is very clearly and plainly in His Word. His will for your life is for you to love Him. Love Him with all your heart. Love Him with all your soul. Love Him with all your strength. In Matthew 22, one of the Jewish specialists in the Old Testament Law came to Jesus. He asked Jesus a very precise question. Out of all 613 laws in the Old Testament, he wanted to know which one was the most important. Jesus didn’t hesitate. He went right back to Deuteronomy 6:5. Love God with all your heart. Love God with all your soul. Love God with all your strength. And then He told the lawyer this—He said, “this is the greatest of all the commandments.” “And if you do that and love your neighbor as yourself, you’ve got the whole Law covered.” What Jesus doesn’t say there is that if you love God the way that you’re supposed to, loving the people He’s created will come as a natural byproduct. So your most basing calling in life is to love God. That’s why you are here. You are here to love God with all of your emotions—that’s your heart. You are to love God with all of your worship and your thoughts and your inside life—that’s your soul. You are to love God with all of your body and your physical abilities—that’s your might. That is your sole purpose in life. God said so in verse 5. Jesus repeated it in Matthew 22:37. What’s interesting is the context He put it in, in our passage this morning. Because He put it in the context of family. When God talks about our purpose in life, He immediately places that purpose in the context of family. That means that you can’t isolate God’s personal will for you from His will for your family. They are interconnected. They are dependent on each other. In other words, if you want to be in God’s will personally, you’d better be doing everything you can to make your home a place of family faith. Your faith is not your own. Your faith is also your family’s faith. The question is, is your home a place of family faith? In order to answer that question, we’re going to have to ask some more questions. The first question we need to ask is, Why should your home be a place of family faith?
Is this really that big of a deal? Why is it that important? The reason it’s important is because of verse 4. It’s important because of who God is. God is one God. At the same time, He is three Persons. He is God the Father. He is God the Son. He is God the Spirit. In the original, verse 4 literally says YHWH, our Elohim, one YHWH. YHWH is the personal, covenant name of God. It’s the name He used to reveal Himself to Moses in the burning bush. It is singular in its grammatical construct. Elohim is a more general name for God. It can also be used to talk about false gods or idols. But the interesting thing about Elohim is that it is plural in its construction. So, even in this verse, God is identifying Himself as both plural and singular. So why does that make a difference to us? Because our God is a God of relationship. Relationship is who He is. And because He is relationship, He created us to be in relationship. That’s the way we learn. That’s the way we teach. That’s the way we live. We learn and teach and live best in an intimate, close relationship. The kind of relationship that is best expressed in a family unit with a mom, a dad, and children. That’s the way God designed it. He designed it that way because of who He is and the nature of His triune relationship between the Father, the Son and the Spirit. But that’s not the only reason our homes should be places of family faith. Because that’s all pretty abstract. There’s a far more concrete reason. Because God told us to. Why should your home be a place of family faith? Yes, because of who God is. But if that’s not plain and simple enough for you… your home should be a place of family faith because God commands it. These 6 verses are not optional. They are the crux of the Law. They are everything that God requires, boiled down to its most irreducible form. The Ten Commandments are a summary of the entire Law. Verse 5 is a summary of the Ten Commandments. Love God. God commands us to love Him. Jesus said that if we love Him we will keep His commandments. Sound familiar? Jesus commands the same thing as the Father. In John 10:30, Jesus says, “I and my Father are One.” What God the Father commands, God the Son commands. So, if you’re going to say that you love Jesus, then you’re going to obey His commands. You are going to build your home as a place of family faith. So, why should your home be a place of family faith? Because of who God is and because of what He commands. But that brings us to the second question we need to ask. We know why. Now the question is, how? How will your home be a place of family faith?
There was something that really stuck out to me in this passage. And that is what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say a word about anything outside of the home. No school or college. No social activities. No extra-curricular activities. No sports. No ballgames. No jobs. None of the things that we think are required to raise well-rounded kids. Don’t get me wrong. That doesn’t mean that those things are bad. It doesn’t even mean that they can’t be good things. It means that those things aren’t going to make your home a place of family faith. It means that those things won’t make your home a place where God is loved the way that He deserves and commands. In other words, if you have to eliminate anything in your home, you can eliminate all of those things before you eliminate what’s really important. Activity, education, personal fulfillment, discovering and nurturing talents and gifts—those can all be good things. But according to this passage, they aren’t even on the list of essential things. None of those things will make your home the place of family faith that the Lord wants it to be. As a matter of fact, there’s only one thing that will—the Bible. None of the things that we spend most of our time doing in our homes is on God’s list. But the one thing we probably spend the least time doing as a family is the only thing on His list. The Lord’s list is completely and totally centered on His Word. If you want your home to be a place of family faith, the first thing you must do is teach the Word. That’s what verse 7 says. Our God is amazing. He has chosen to speak directly to us in His Word. He doesn’t do it in abstract ways that are confusing and easily misunderstood like visions and dreams. He speaks directly, concretely and propositionally in His Word. He wrote it down so that we can translate it and understand it in our own language. And then he gives us the greatest classroom in the world to teach it. He gives us homes. Homes to teach our wives. Homes to teach our children. Homes to teach our grandchildren. Homes to teach our extended family. And not passively, either. We’re not just supposed to sit back and hope that learning will take place by osmosis. We’re not to rely on good teaching to just rub off on them. Verse 7 is an interesting translation. The KJV says, “Thou shalt teach them diligently.” In the original, it’s only a two word command. “You” is the first word. The second word doesn’t really have a direct equivalent in English. But it’s a word that brings to mind what God did when He inscribed the Law on the two stone tablets that He gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. Probably the closest word we have is “inscribe” or “impress”. Teach God’s Word to your family directly—diligently. Impress it upon them. Carve it into their lives. It is not the responsibility of Veggie Tales to teach your family God’s Word. It is not the responsibility of Bible in the Schools to teach your family God’s Word. It is not the Sunday school or AWANA teacher’s responsibility to teach your family God’s Word. It is not even my responsibility to teach your family God’s Word. All of those things are there to reinforce what you’re teaching at home. All of those things are there to drive your chisel a little bit deeper as you engrave God’s Word into your family’s life. If you want your home to be a place of family faith, YOU must teach the Word. But not only must you teach the Word, you must live the Word.
Your home will be a place of family faith if you live the Word. Look at the second part of verse 7. Not only are you teaching the Word to your family, you’re living it. You talk about it all the time. The word translated “talk” here carries the idea of an ongoing conversation. This isn’t a lecture. It’s a lifestyle. Find me a time when you’re not sitting or standing or walking or lying down. Whenever you’re not doing one of those things, you’re free to take time off from living the Gospel. And part of living the Gospel is always having it near you. Verse 8 talks about a practice they had of tying little boxes with Scripture verses in them to their wrists and their foreheads. They would keep those verses in there and memorize them so that they would always have Scripture close to them. That’s why I encourage us to memorize Scripture. That’s why I carry a pocket New Testament with me everywhere I go. Verse 9 says that God’s Word should be everywhere. It should always be in front of your eyes because it’s written everywhere you look. But you can carry a Bible. You can memorize verses. You can have verses all over your walls at home. You can even wear clothes that have verses on them. But if your life doesn’t match your talk, your home is not a place of family faith. One of the big questions in Christian ministry today is, How do we hold on to our young people? Statistics tell us that between 70 and 80% of all young people who grow up in church leave and don’t come back. Why is that? Is it because we don’t have good enough youth programs? Is it because we don’t have deep enough teaching? Is it because churches don’t get them involved enough in ministries outside the youth group? That might be part of it. But if it is, it’s a small part of it. More time and effort and research has been put into youth ministry in the past 30 years than ever in the history of the church. But the statistics keep getting worse. Why? Is it because these kids come from unchurched homes with terrible backgrounds? No—the ironic thing is that those kids are staying in church. Kids with terrible, godless backgrounds make up the majority of the 20-30% who are staying. So who are the ones that are leaving? The ones whose Christian parents aren’t living the same way at home as they do at church. The ones who lose confidence in a Gospel that only works on Sunday mornings and doesn’t have enough power to change Monday afternoons. Let me be frank with you. What do you think it does to your family when you go home today and fill your conversation with all the things wrong with church? You might not think it’s any big deal, but your kids are listening. And when you talk about this one and that one. Or when you talk about some part of the service you didn’t like. Or when you talk about how the preacher doesn’t make sense. Or when you talk about the music or the lights or anything. Somebody’s listening. And they hear how your words about the body of Christ don’t match what the Bible says about the body of Christ. And when they hear that, then what the Bible says must not really be true. If the Gospel can’t even be lived out 30 minutes after church is over, how can it be lived out in the backseat of a car? You want to know something sad? Even the majority of pastor’s kids leave the church after youth group and don’t come back. Because I can talk about the same things that anybody can talk about around the dinner table. But that’s not much of a Gospel lifestyle, is it? No—a Gospel lifestyle is one that doesn’t just throw out an occasional “God bless you” or “I’m praying for you.” A Gospel lifestyle shows itself in the ordinary circumstances of life. Even things as mundane as the way you lie down at night or the way you get up in the morning. Everything in life is a teachable moment. Now, I’m not saying that all young people that leave the church do so because of bad parenting. Of course that’s not the case. I’m not even saying that it’s the majority of them. Young people are stiff-necked sinners just like the rest of us. They rebel just like the rest of us. There are a lot of wonderful parents who have done everything right and their kids still chose to do wrong. This passage isn’t talking about outcomes. It’s talking about inputs. And the input is, that in your home, you need to teach the Word. And in your home, you need to live the Word.
And that brings us to our final question. We know why our homes should be places of family faith. And we know how they will be places of family faith. That leaves us with a question about results. We are a results oriented culture. We always want to know what the bottom line is. So, what will happen when your home is a place of family faith? I wish that I could say that everything would be perfect. I wish that I could say that your children and grandchildren would always live right and live godly lives. I wish that I could say that you would always be healthy, wealthy and prosperous. But I can’t. In the context of our passage, God told Israel that if they did those things that He would bring them into the land that He promised them. But notice that He didn’t promise them that there would be no adversity along the way. You see, we are just like Isaiah saw himself to be. We are people of unclean lips living in the midst of people with unclean lips. We are all fallen and sinful. Jesus has saved many of us from that sin. But we still live in a fallen and sinful world. Sometimes we rebel. Sometimes our families rebel. This is not a magic 12-step formula to raise perfect families. If being a perfect parent meant that children wouldn’t rebel, then why did Adam and Eve rebel against God in the Garden of Eden? No—this passage isn’t about outcomes. It’s about being faithful to do the things that God has called you to do. It’s about being able to stand before Jesus one day and tell Him, “Lord, I was a faithful steward of what you entrusted me with.” Well, what if you haven’t been a faithful steward? What if you’ve made an absolute mess of things? That’s what Israel did, didn’t they? The only part of this passage that they kept was wearing the little boxes on their wrists and foreheads. And they had no idea what they meant. But even in their faithlessness, God is still faithful. His covenant love is unconditional. He gave them the Promised Land and He led them to it. And one day He will give it all to them. Not because they deserve it. But because He is full of grace and mercy. And because He keeps His promises. He has made you a promise. He has promised that all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. No matter how bad you’ve messed things up. No matter what kind of a wreck your family might be. He will save you because He has promised to. Not because you deserve it, but precisely because you don’t. He will be your Savior. He will be your Lord. He will be the Lord of your life and the Lord of your home. How can you make your home a place of family faith? Commit your life and your family to Jesus. Will you do that today?
