Pilgrim Men, Shepherd Fathers: Fathers’ Day 2016 Deuteronomy 6:1-9

Pilgrim Men, Shepherd Fathers: Fathers’ Day 2016

Deuteronomy 6:1-9

Introduction: Someone observed,

To our forefathers, our faith was an experience.

To our fathers, our faith was an inheritance.

To us our faith is a convenience.

To our children our faith is a nuisance.

I don’t believe that kind of decline is necessarily our experience, or that it  inevitably will be our experience. However, it is the story that will likely unfold if we don’t take seriously our responsibility to diligently teach the next generation the way of the Lord. It’s been well said that “God doesn’t have any grandchildren—only children.” Our faith is to be shared, and taught and lived out before our kids if we would hope for them to walk the narrow path to life.

       I decided to break from our I Peter series this week to look at what I view as one of the foundational passages for family, and especially for fathers.  The passage, called the “Shema” is so foundational to the message of the Old Testament that pious Jews to this day recite the paragraph, in Hebrew, daily.  The title for the message today is “Pilgrim Men, Shepherd Fathers.” First, as we have been talking about this year from First Peter (and in the Psalms of Ascent on Wednesday evenings) about the fact that we are pilgrims in a fallen world. Our citizenship is in heaven, and we are foreigners and exiles in the world. As Moses wrote Deuteronomy the people had been traveling in the wilderness for almost 40 years. They were heading toward the land but they had not yet arrived. They weren’t home yet, they were just passing through. We too are exiles and pilgrims, living in a fallen world. Our citizenship is in Heaven. We were created for eternity.

       There are also many parallels between the role of a Pastor, (which actually means “shepherd”) and the calling of fathers as they lead their families. What does a shepherd do?  Shepherds know the sheep, they feed the sheep, they protect the sheep and they lead the sheep. In our church we believe that God has called the pastor and elders to share in that ministry to the church.   From a certain perspective God has delegated that same authority and responsibility to fathers: they know their families, and are to provide for (feed) them, protect, and lead them.  The passage we’ll look at this morning in Deuteronomy shows the necessity of teaching the next generation and leading them to the Word that gives life. They need to be led to their own faith in Jesus, and faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. 

       The Creator has established certain principles for being an effective and godly parent – we’ll see several in this text.  None of us have fulfilled our calling as men perfectly. Honestly I know that I could have made many better choices. I am blessed by the many positive examples that I see in our church, young men who have their priorities right, much better than I ever did.  All of us, regardless of age, still have a role to fulfill in impacting the next generation for Christ, and we can all hear the Word and determine to be the positive influence God intends us to be starting today.  His mercies are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness! 

The Maine* Idea: We need to teach our children the truth about God, and show by our example the reality of our faith.

I. The Goal of a godly Father: Helping our Children to experience the abundant life God intends for them (1-3).  

"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.  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.”

            God had spoken, and listening and carefully obeying the Word God had spoken through Moses would give the Israelites the abundant life of blessing in the Land which had been promised by God.  Obedience to God’s revealed Word was the means to his blessing – the way to discover and experience God’s best for his chosen people.  We need to be in the Word if we are going to teach the Word. There is a tremendous ignorance of the Bible today.  Have you ever watched “Jeopardy!”?  Brilliant people – often ignorant of basic Bible facts. There was a report of a New England teacher who quizzed a group of college bound High School juniors and seniors on the Bible. The quiz preceded a class on “Bible as Literature” he planned to teach...  Some of the answers he received:  “Sodom and Gomorrah were lovers.” “Jezebel was Ahab’s donkey.”  The Four horsemen appeared “on the Acropolis.” The New Testament gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, LUTHER, and John. “Eve was created from an apple.” Jesus was baptized by Moses.  A student in the top 5% of his class won the prize though when asked “What was Golgatha?” He replied, “Golgatha was the name of the giant who slew the apostle David.” The lack of Bible reading and ignorance of what the Bible teaches is endemic in our society.  Consider that the God who is, the creator of the universe and only Savior of humans, has spoken, and so few are listening!  But before we are too hard on unbelievers, we should be sure to look in the mirror and ask how much time we spend in the Word. We believe it to be the Word of God, do we treat it that way?

            Jesus said “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”  We can experience God’s best as well, abundant life, life with meaning.  It starts with taking God at His word. Believing God and obeying him are tied together in the Bible.  I think the ESV translation gets the sense of John 3:35,36 and illustrates this truth:

“The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.  ³⁶ Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:35,36a; see also John 10:27,28).

It’s not enough to know what it says – Nate Saint said his life didn’t change until he came to grips with the fact that “obedience is not a momentary option: it is a die-cast decision made beforehand…” As James puts it, we are to be “...doers of the Word, and not hearers only…”

            Deuteronomy 6:2a hints at the generational impact the Bible can have on our families: “...so that you, and your son, and your grandson…” Knowing the word, obeying it, teaching it diligently would be the means of experiencing blessing, and also for impacting the next generation(s) for Christ.  It is true that a Father’s teaching may not be appreciated in the short term, but it will have an impact on a child’s life.  Mark Twain reportedly said:

“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in just seven years.” 

The Proverb says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it...” (Proverbs 22:6). Nothing can impact a family more powerfully than the teaching and example of a godly father: one who is in the Word and under the Lordship of Christ. We need to teach our children the truth about God, and show by our example the reality of our faith.

II. The Foundation of our mission: Authentic faith.  You cannot impart what you do not possess (6:4,5).  It’s a simple fact that you cannot impart what you do not possess. Moses writes here about knowing and loving God:

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  ⁵ You shall love the LORD

your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

            An exclusive commitment to the true God: First of all we see the absolute necessity of a commitment to God, an clear cut, exclusive commitment to the Lord as our God (v.4).  I am convinced that many traditional translations of this verse miss what the writer intended to emphasize. The Hebrew construction leaves a little ambiguity as to the translation, but the context should clarify what the writer meant. Chapters 5-11 of Deuteronomy are an affirmation of the Lord’s exclusive claim to Israel’s devotion and love.  He alone is God!  The NLT is the only English version I have found that gets it right. [The NIV notes in the margin, as a possible translation: “Hear O Israel, Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone!”]. That makes the most sense in this context.

            First, the first word, “Hear!” “Listen well to what I am about to say!” It’s like the preacher who ways “If you take one thing away from the sermon today let it be this!” He is putting an exclamation point at the beginning of the sentence and saying “Whatever you do, don’t miss this!”

 “[The LORD] Yahweh, is our God, Yahweh alone.”

This verse is not a statement about God in his “Tri-unity” (that is certainly taught elsewhere in the Bible).  Rather this is a statement that despite the false gods the Israelites would see worshipped in the promised land only Yahweh is the true God, the God of their fathers, and only He is to be worshipped.  As Moses was writing the nation was poised on the plains of Moab as they prepared to enter the Land, they needed to know that it was not Ra of Egypt, not Baal of the Canaanites nor Marduk of the Babylonians, nor any other pagan deity, but only the Lord, Yahweh, the God who is, the One who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush and who brought the fathers out of Egypt, only He was to be worshipped. 

             Well – that is no problem for us right?  I mean we don’t see idols or false gods that we might be tempted to worship, do we? D.L. Moody said over a century ago, “You don’t have to go to heathen lands to find idols, America is full of them.  Whatever you love more than God is your idol.” Remember, the context is the foundation of the faith that we are to pass on to the next generation. Are we making it clear that the one true God, our creator and savior, is the one and only thing that we worship? Is it He alone sits on the throne of our lives?

             The call here is for an authentic commitment to know Him intimately and to love Him passionately. Notice verse 5, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”  (6:5).  Notice the repetition “…all …all …all…” The writer is saying in the most emphatic way possible that we need to love God whole heartedly. That is the heart of the Christian life. That kind of Commitment will be evident in how we live.  Augustine said, “Love God, then do as you please…” If we really love him, we’ll want to live a life that is pleasing to him.  Our kids will see that there is something real, something authentic in our relationship with God.  It’s been said that a child is not likely to find a Father in God, unless he finds something of God in his father. We need to teach our children the truth about God, and we need to show by our example the reality of our faith.

III. The Means of fulfilling our mission:  Life is our classroom (6:6-9; cf. 4:9).

“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.”  

            V.6 says “These words… shall be on your heart…” In order to teach the Word by example and through our words, we need to know it!  George Washington said “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.” That’s true of nations, it’s also true of families.  Psalm 1, the righteous man “delights in the Law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night…”  Paul told the Colossians, “Let the Word of Christ dwell richly within you…” (Col 3:16).  John 15:7 Jesus told his disciples,  “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” Joshua 1:8 says we are to “mediate day and night” on God’s word.  Does all of that sound radical?  Maybe, but that is normal, healthy Christianity. Does it sound maybe too “religious”?  It’s not about religion, it’s about a relationship that is real and alive.  We are called to radical commitment, and that means for us God’s Word is not a suggestion, it is not one way to live, it is not an option, it is TRUTH, and the only way we can live and experience the life God wants for us and for our family.

            A godly father will teach God’s Word diligently and consistently (v.7). NB. The repetition is affirming that always, at every opportunity we need to look for opportunities to affirm God’s truth. It’s not just Sunday School, this is true “home schooling” at its best! “…impress them upon you children…” (NIV). 

       According to vv. 8-9, a godly father is distinguished by being centered on the Word.  Proverbs 6:20-23 expresses this same idea,

“My son, observe the commandment of your father And do not forsake the teaching of your mother;  ²¹ Bind them continually on your heart; Tie them around your neck.  ²² When you walk about, they will guide you; When you sleep, they will watch over you; And when you awake, they will talk to you.  ²³ For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching is light; And reproofs for discipline are the way of life...”

These verses were surely intended metaphorically, the idea being to stay in the Word always, to constantly be aware of and reminded of God’s truth.  At some point orthodox Jews began to literally tie phylacteries on the left arm and forehead during daily prayers, and put a mezuzah on the doorpost of their home.  Far more important is to allow the Word to transform our mind (Rom 12:1,2) which will change the way we live, and then ultimately our family will also begin to be changed.

       By the way, teaching in life, teaching by example, will require time, giving priority to our family…

Kenneth Chaflin, a seminary professor who often speaks and writes about building stronger families was home getting ready to eat supper before heading off to a speaking engagement. His 5yr old daughter came and said, “Daddy will you stay home with me tonight?” Her plea pierced his soul. He thought within himself, “How could I tell her no because I have to go and speak and tell others, “How a Good Father Ought to Be”?

       It was too late to cancel the meeting, so he tried to soften her disappointment and make her feel important by asking her to help him with his speech. He asked her to describe what she thought it meant to be a good daddy. He jotted down her response: “To catch a fish, Build a fire, Fly a kite, Catch a butterfly, Plant a flower, Get a kitty out of the mud.”

He folded the paper, went to his meeting and while he was sitting on the platform waiting to be introduced, he looked at this list and suddenly it hit him. Nothing that his daughter wanted in an “ideal father” required money. What she wanted was his time.

Nothing can impact a family more powerfully than the teaching and example of a godly father: one who is in the Word and under the Lordship of Christ. That will take investment, especially time. Some of you ladies don’t have a present or involved Father helping you raise your child. God knows. It is good to have men in your extended family, and men here in your church family involved in helping as mentors and examples.  Fathers, grandfathers, men, consider how you can encourage the children in our extended church family by your faith and example.

What is God saying to me in this passage?  We need to teach our children the truth about God, and show by our example the reality of our faith.

What would God have me to do in response to this passage? Make certain of you own commitment to the Lord. Commit yourself to being filled and controlled by God’s Word. We need time in the Word.  We have a guidebook from the Maker! You can’t do this on your own!  If our rising up and our laying down, if every moment of our life is going to reflect the fact that we believe God, and that we take Him at His word, our children need to see us open the Book, they need to hear us read it like we believe it!  We live in troubled times, but we needn’t despair.  You are not alone.  With God in us, with his Word (which is absolute truth) to guide us, with our wives to stand by us and the church to support us, you have what it takes to be the family Shepherd God intended you to be.  Know your kids, and shepherd them (invest time!): feed them (spiritually as well!), lead them, and protect them. Take the responsibility that has been delegated to you by your Maker to lead your family and to teach by word and by example.                 AMEN.