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Who Cares #2: "Who Cares About Your Family?" Deuteronomy 6:1-25

by Clancy Nixon

March 11, 2007

Church of the Holy Spirit

Ashburn, Virginia

www.HolySpiritAnglican.org

When I was growing up, I sometimes wondered if anyone cared about my family.

My parents were divorced when I was ten. Things got worse for my family during my

teen years. I think people felt sorry for me that my dad was gone, but I never felt that

anyone outside particularly cared what happened to me, until I met some believers

through a church camp. These people cared about me so much that I made some of my

closest friends for years at that camp. Through these same people, I first learned that God

cared about me, too.

Who cares about your family? Who really cares? There are plenty of people who

care about the changing definition of family, about the decline of the traditional family,

and about things like family household income. Some members of your nuclear family

or family of origin may care a lot (or not a whit!) about you or your family. But apart

from you and other caring family members, like parents, grandparents and siblings, who

really cares about your family today? The answer is, "God cares; and we care." Let's

say that together: "God cares; and we care." God cares about your family. True Christ-

followers care about your family, and our congregation, Church of the Holy Spirit - we

care, too. During March, our church is joining other churches in Loudoun in the "We

Care Campaign." Many people in our county have had experiences that lead them to

believe that no one cares about them. People are cared for primarily through their family,

so I am focusing these messages during the We Care Campaign on the family. Last week

we looked at marriage. This week we look at who cares about your family. Next week

we look at who cares about your children, and in week four we look at who cares about

you.

Who cares about your family? God cares and we care. Let's say it together again:

"God cares and we care."

In the book of Ruth, our hearts are warmed by the story of loyalty and care

between the older Naomi and her widowed daughter-in-law, Ruth, in the wake of famine.

The story ends with Ruth and Naomi being rescued from poverty and loneliness by

Naomi's rich cousin Boaz, who acts as kinsman-redeemer. The story of Ruth is a picture

of God's care for us through his family.

God's Word has many things to teach us about how He and his people care for

your family. Turn with me to Deuteronomy, Chapter 6, and beginning at verse 1, found

on page 178 of your blue pew Bibles. The book of Deuteronomy is a single sermon

written and given by Moses on Mt. Nebo just before his death, just before the Hebrews

were to end their forty years of wilderness wanderings in Sinai to enter the Promised

Land of Canaan. Moses had groomed Joshua son of Nun as his successor to lead the

people across the Jordan River to their promised homeland. Moses knew there would be

great battles ahead, with losses as well as victories, and here is his final message to

prepare the people of God for this historic conquest. So what does Moses focus on? Is it

on military strategy? Unit cohesion? Selection of weapons? Well, no and yes. On the one

hand, No: On the face of it, Deuteronomy is Moses' advice on how to live as God's

people, obeying his commands, in the middle of a pagan culture that would tempt them to

follow other gods. So no, it's not about military strategy, but about spiritual strategy. But

on the other hand, Yes: it is about military strategy, unit cohesion and selection of

weapons, if you see the spiritual battle for the hearts and minds of the next generations

as the real battlefield of this war. That's how Moses sees it. God cares primarily about

our spiritual health because every other kind of health flows from that spiritual center.

In Deuteronomy 6:1 and 2, Moses says, "These are the commands ... that the

LORD directed me to teach you ... so that you, your children and their children after

them may fear the LORD, ... and so that you may enjoy long life ... and so that it may go

well with you ...." In Deuteronomy five, Moses had just reiterated the Ten

Commandments to make sure that God's people got it. These are the commands Moses is

referring to here in 6:1. Notice with me that Moses tells us the reason why God gives us

these commands it's for our own good. It's because God cares about us. It's so it goes

well with us and so we enjoy long life. God insists that we follow in his peculiar ways

for our own benefit. It's because God loves us that he tells us in Deut. 5:16 to honor our

father and mother all the days of our lives. It is because God loves both children and

parents that he insists in Ephesians 5 that children obey their parents while they still live

in their house. Why else would God command us as he does in verse 5 to love him back

with all our heart, soul and strength? God desires a love relationship with each of us.

Jesus called that the first and greatest commandment. Here in Deuteronomy, Moses tells

us that we are to teach our children and grandchildren to love him as well.

In verses 7 through 9, we are given strong words on how to do that. Notice the

verbs that Moses uses here. He says, "Impress them on your children. Talk about them

when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when

you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write

them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." (Deut. 6:7-9) Impress, talk,

tie and write. These are action verbs. Teaching our children is not enough; we are to

train them until their behavior matches what the word of God requires. We, the church,

have no higher calling than to train our children to follow the faith once delivered to the

saints. This is one important way how the church cares for your family, by training you

so that you can train your children; and by training your children directly. For if you do

not follow the Lord, chances are slim that your children will. Children may not be very

good at listening to their parents; but they have never failed to imitate them. I don't know

about you, but I notice that my own children tend to duplicate my behavior patterns that I

least like about myself. When I see it in them, it looks pretty ugly, and I am reminded of

how ugly it must look on me. Moses in his sermon addresses the people as a group. In

verse 12, he says, "Be careful that you do not forget the Lord." We are members of his

body, which helps us to re-member, to be brought back into right thinking and practice

with the other members of the body. The church cares for us by helping us to remember

God.

In verses 13-19, we see that God is not about simply teaching right doctrine and

practice (orthodoxy and orthopraxy), but also about warning us away from wrong

doctrine and practice (heterodoxy and heteropraxy). In verse 15, God tells us that idolatry

will "destroy us from the face of the land." We behave as we believe. Our idolatries

today may look different than those of the Canaanites, or they may not, but they are no

less destructive of our souls. For example, Mesha, King of Moab, sacrificed his firstborn

son (probably to the god Moloch) when he lost a battle against Jehoshaphat king of Judah

and Joram king of Israel in 2 Kings 3:27. Is that really so different than what we do?

About one million children, most of them firstborn, are sacrificed each year on to the

idols of convenience and shame and fear in abortion clinics in this country; as Moses

warned, our next generation is being destroyed from the face of the land.

In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul tells us that "All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for

teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness...." The terms "Teaching and

Correcting" speak of getting doctrine right teaching is positive inputs, and correcting

involves pointing out wrong ideas. Both are important, but these two are not enough.

Training speaks of behavior training is producing correct behavior, and rebuking is

correcting wrong behavior. Training is harder than teaching, because it is harder to

change behavior than it is to impart information. This is how the faith is passed down

through the generations, and all four elements teaching, correcting, training and

rebuking are essential in that process.

In Deut. verses 10, 11, and 24, God promises to provide all manner of good things

to Hebrew families if they only obey him. God provides cities they did not build,

vineyards they didn't plant, and wells they did not dig. Families that do not lie or steal

will proper more than those that do. God provides to his people everything they need.

How we here in Loudoun have been given even more earthly benefits! We live in this

great metropolis that we did not build, in this land of freedom that we did not create.

Unlike the ones Moses addressed on Mt. Nebo, we did not have to conquer this land

ourselves; we simply had to prosper in it. Our homeland is a sign of God's care for us.

God cares for your family in that he provides for you a heritage. Verses 20 and

following tell parents what they are to say to their children when they ask about the way

of faith that the parents are teaching them. They are to tell their children how the Lord

brought them up out of slavery in Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and

sent signs and wonders to defeat their enemies and give them this land in Canaan. This

story helps the child understand that this faith is not about them alone; it is bigger than

their family or clan or tribe, even than the nation of Israel. This is the story of the people

of God, and it is our story, too. We are the people of God, brought into the covenant not

through the Passover lamb on the lentil, but through the shed blood of Jesus on the cross,

who became our Passover lamb. Our heritage is the body of Christ. Our identity is as

Christians first. That identity is even more fundamental than the identity we received

from our family of origin. Both are important. This teaching to tell our children the

stories of our heritage can be understood also to imply hat we should teach our children

our own God stories, the stories of how we came to faith, of the signs and wonders that

God did for us, how he rescued you personally from bondage. How many of you who

come from believing homes remember your parents telling you the story of how your

parents came to faith in Christ? Let's be a generation whose children know God's story in

the Bible3, and who also know the story of their family and how God saved us personally

with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

When the church is working right, the church cares for your family. Historically,

the church has cared for the needy. In his book The Rise of Christianity, Historian

Rodney Stark says that the church's amazing growth from Pentecost to Nicea, from

obscurity in Judea to the official religion of the Roman empire less than 300 years later,

is primarily a story of care for the sick and needy. Yes, many factors were at work here,

including the great system of Roman roads, the growth of the church in the cities, and the

martyrs whose example was a powerful impetus. The Roman practice was to allow sickly

children to die of exposure, and parents would abandon them in the countryside to the

elements. Christians rescued and cared for these ones, and raised them in the faith. They

also cared for the very sick at a time when very few others did. Sometimes they would

recover, so like in Deuteronomy 6:24, they "obeyed God, prospered, and kept alive."

I remember how a home group cared for a family when I was at Church of the

Apostles in Fairfax. A man named Jim had lost his job, and he and his family were in

danger of losing their home to creditors. His home group prayed about it, and agreed to

pay this man's mortgage for almost a year while he looked for another job in his field.

They truly bore one another's burdens and cared for his family. When the church is

working right, we see extraordinary kindnesses like that.

Who cares about your family? [hand to ear] God cares, and we care. God cares

about your family so much that he sent his only begotten son to die for your family, so

you could all join in his story. His will is that none in your family should perish not

your parents, not your siblings, not your mate or your cousin. Certainly not you, who

have heard the good tidings of great joy, that our savior has come! Jesus cares about you;

he cares about your family. He heals all your diseases and provides for everything you

need. All you need do is ask. Do not forget the Lord.

Maybe some of you have been hurt because the church has not cared for your

family the way it should have. Don't delay, forgive the person who hurt you today.

Maybe you have been convicted today that you are not doing all that God would have

you do to train your children, or to tell them the stories of how God has moved in your

life. Repent, and return to the ways of the Lord. Let the hearts of the fathers and mothers

be turned to their children and the hearts of the children be turned to their fathers and

mothers. Perhaps you have not been grateful for the amazing provision of God in your

life. God cares about you and your family. Surrender to him today. Let today be the day

of your salvation. If you have a need, prayer ministers are standing by on the left aisle to

minister to you.