All right, so yeah, again, picture of my family.
Yeah, awesome, awesome people. I'll tell them the in the first
service here, like so there's Hezekiah on the on the left.
He is our son and he is kind of surrounded by sisters.
He loves to eat and he loves to just explore different things.
He's the he's the person who's going to be so daring.
He's just all over the place. He's kind of a daddy's boy and a
daddy's girl and a mama's boy at the same time.
Like he loves daddy. He he kind of like starts to
talk, but he, he calls everybody dad just which is really funny,
like dad and that are his favorite words.
And then there's there's Zion in the middle on the bottom.
And she loves to learn. She loves art and things like
that. There's Shiloh on the bottom
right. And she is like this almost the
same personality as my wife. We could totally see her being
like a, like a lawyer. And when she grows up, she's a
fierce advocate. She'll like, very opinionated,
knows what she wants. And she will, she will tell you,
which is which is really cool. She's the the enforcer.
She'll be like, if, if mom and daddy lay down a rule, she'll be
like, no, mom and dad said no, it's really cool.
So yeah, just a little bit of and and I love my kids, right?
Our passage today comes into Deuteronomy 6, verses 5 through
9. So I'm going to read it for us.
Turn there if you'd like, says this.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
and with all your strength. These words that I'm giving you
today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children,
talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk
along the road and when you lie down and when you get up, buying
them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your
forehead. Write them on the doorposts of
your house and on your city gates.
This is the word of the Lord. So a little bit might be a
little different. The last church service of the
year, the first one before the New year, Christmas just passed.
Why Deuteronomy 6? So before we get into
Deuteronomy 6, I want to break it down and see some context and
history. What is happening leading up to
this time in Deuteronomy 6? So to do that, we kind of have
to back up a little bit into Numbers 14, further into the Old
Testament. So Numbers 14 is where the
Israelites were initially freed from slavery in Egypt, right?
They were LED through the desert by the pillar of cloud and by
fire. They arrived at the promised
land finally in Canaan and but only to find out it was already
inhabited. Some people were already living
there. The people that were living
there were giants, right? And, and the, the, the spies
that the Israelites has sent out to kind of see what this
promised land was looking like. They saw these giants.
They brought the news back to the rest of the Israelites and
they're kind of consumed by fear, right?
They were thinking some of the things there might have been
thinking was for the giants, kill them.
They'd be taken as slaves again by these these giants.
Should they go back to Egypt, where at least they knew what it
was like and they'd survived for a certain amount of time?
Should they have just died in the wilderness so they didn't
have to confront this this potential danger?
They had a hard time trusting God, right?
And these are it's so interesting to think these are
like literal giants, right? I'm Chinese American and I used
to play basketball. I say used to have gotten older,
have kids now as much time she's use my time in other ways.
But when I was playing basketball right among other
Asian people, I'd be pretty tall.
So I kind of had to play power forward or center.
You kind of pushed into that position.
But then when I'm playing with other non Asian people, I'll be
a lot shorter than them. So I'd have to play like
shooting guard or small forward. And so depending on who I was
playing with at the playground, you have to kind of look around,
scan the room and see like, OK, who do I have to be today?
Do I have to like start posting up and get into the get into the
key? Or do I have to, you know, start
stretching a little bit more to do a little bit more movement
around the edges of the, of the court.
And, and I think like when I, yeah, I was always kind of not
the biggest person on the court. So whenever I see somebody
taller than me weighing a lot more than me, I'll get a little,
a little nervous, right? Like, OK, how am I going to box
this person out and things like that?
And I can only imagine the Israelites fear, right?
They're consumed by fear. And, and we know that that's not
necessarily a good thing because we see that that mistrust in God
actually brought them some punishment, some consequences,
consequences like I say to my kids, that fact that they did
not trust God, God brought them and said, hey, you will not
enter the promised land. You actually this generation is
going to pass away in the wilderness and you will not
enter the promised land. They were simply just blinded by
their circumstances, literally right in front of them.
Now, by the time we get to Deuteronomy 6, right, most of
this generation has died off. Moses, who's speaking in
Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 6, is talking to the children and
grandchildren of those who were initially freed from Egypt,
right? And he says, love Lord your God.
These are these words that I'm giving you today are to be in
your heart, right? Repeat these words to your
children. Talk about them when you sit in
your house behind them as a sign on your hand.
Let these words be a symbol on your forehead, and these words
that Moses gives them follows after this portion, and it fills
21 chapters of Deuteronomy, 21 chapters of Deuteronomy.
He says these things. Moses says these things.
These 21 chapters are to be in your heart.
These 21 chapters of content, of words, I want you to repeat them
to your children. These 21 chapters of content, I
want you to talk about them when you sit down in your house, when
you walk along the road. These 21 chapters, I want you to
bind them as a sign in your forehead.
I want you to write these 21 chapters of words on your
doorposts and in your city gates.
These 21 chapters, that's a lot. That's a lot.
It's quite a lot. There's a lot of laws, a lot of
instructions, a lot of details that Moses gives, right?
And at this time, Moses is getting older, right?
He's walked with the generation that passed away and, and he
knows he himself is not going to be going into the promised Land,
right? He did something that he
shouldn't have done. And so he couldn't enter the
promised land. But he's giving the Israelites
some final words, right? He knows he's going to pass on.
He's like, before I pass away and before you go into the
promised Land, I have something I want to tell you.
And he gives them 21 chapters of things right now.
Deuteronomy 65. Love the Lord your God with all
your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.
It's kind of like the subject line of his, of his message, the
title of his monologue, right? And he calls the Israelites to
do all these things. 21 chapters full of rules and instructions
and and reminders, right? I imagine Moses is like, hey,
when I'm gone and you're in the promised land, don't forget
these things. Don't forget these things.
Keep doing these things, right? Kind of like his last words.
Now it's been over 3000 years. Fast forward to today, right,
that Moses said these words, but I think that we need these exact
same things. We need these that exact same
challenge, that exact same challenge for us with Scripture
today. So let's kind of take it verse
by verse. In verse 5, Moses says love the
Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and
with all your strength, right? And so how can we start to love
God with everything? How can we start to love God
with everything if we don't really know him?
I like how this is the positive side of the command, right?
He doesn't say like, don't be driven by stress and and don't
pay attention to what others think of you.
And, and don't be having your decisions made by perfection or
driven by what other people are thinking or expecting of you
'cause that list could just go on for 21 chapters or more,
right? Like don't do this, don't do
that, don't. But I love others like, hey,
just love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with
all your strength, right? And be driven.
He's essentially saying I, I would argue he's saying
essentially be driven to love God with every part of your
lives, even when no one's looking, even when you don't get
the credit, even when you might be tempted in your hearts and no
one sees, even when there might be lust, pride or anything else
that no one really sees. But are you going to love?
I want you to love God with all your heart, with all your soul,
with all your strength. Don't be driven and moved by
anything else but God. Don't be moved or driven by
anything else other than God. How can, how can we know what
God wants if we don't read his word right?
Let's how can we love him if we don't know Him?
Verse 6, These words I'm giving you today are to be in your
heart. I think I missed a couple of
slides here. That's how I imagined the
Israelites felt with the giants. But he's saying don't be afraid.
You should fear God. Follow him.
All right? Yeah, let's.
All right. So this is the thing, if we're
to be honest with ourselves, right?
These words I'm giving you today are to be in your heart.
Let's ask ourselves what's really in our hearts.
I have young kids at home and so it's kind of easy sometimes to
see what's in their hearts. This is not my kid.
This just for their privacy. But like I, I see this face so
many times in in our house, right.
Picky eaters like things that, that they, they don't want to
give up or they don't want to stop doing.
They're like fun country and play all day long.
They, they will stay up like it's, it's been Christmas
weekend. So we kind of, you know, cut
them a little bit more slack, let them stay up a little bit
longer. We just got this like on
OfferUp. We found like a free slide.
And so we set it up in the living room and like, literally
for like, it was up until like 9:00 last night, like maybe even
10. They're just like going around
just taking turns, all three of them just going down this slide
over and over again. And then when it was time to go,
I had to like, literally like, wait until they like, looked
away to like, drink some water, like Chuck it away and like,
hide it so they couldn't see it because otherwise it would just
be a whole episode. But I could see what is in their
hearts right now. What's really in our hearts?
Is it really truly to be with God and follow his word, right?
Or is it more so maybe to to look for comfortability,
stability, financially or predictability in terms of
career, right? What's really in our heart?
Those things aren't necessarily bad, but is our true desire in
our hearts to really be with God, whether or not we get that
job, whether or not we have financial stability, whether or
not our housing is is stable, Is it still to truly be with God no
matter what what's in your heart?
Verse 7 Moses says repeat them to your children.
Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk
along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
So guilty of not doing this. I release so much to Martha.
Actually, it's like a modern day Martha situation going on here.
I get so lost in all the things, right?
Household chores, teaching the kids to talk to not just hum and
complain, but to use their words.
What do you want, right? To write, to count, do dishes,
laundry. It seems like it's never ending,
but this scripture here that Moses said 3000 years ago,
repeat these things to your children.
Repeat these 21 chapters to your children.
Repeat God's word to your children.
I need to do that more. How much do we really do these
things, do this in our day-to-day life, whether we have
kids or not? Is it do we do it with the
people around us? I work with University Christian
Fellowship, right? And it's a, it's a Christian
organization. And I get to talk with people
who are considering missions and we get to send people to, we
have over 120 different countries that we are able to
send people to, to serve students in all those different
countries. So there's a lot of opportunity
out there. And I get to talk with people,
help them discern through missions and potential
potentially serving overseas and living overseas.
And I think, and I think about it, right, like how much do I
repeat God's Word? So much of my work can just be
the, the projects and the deadlines and the, the
communications and the emails and things like that.
But how much are we getting back to God's word?
And if you work in a secular workplace, or you might not, it
might be kind of weird if you're like, Hey, the Bible says after
holidays on Monday morning, it could be a lot easier, right?
To, to be like, Hey, how was your weekend?
What did you do over the holiday and things like that.
And, and how much does like, you know, engage in that
conversation and, and talk about God's word without maybe
sometimes being so explicit about it, right?
Do we use, how often does Scripture come into our mind and
into our words with in our homes and in our workplaces?
Verse 8 says Moses says, bind them as a sign on your hand and
let them be a symbol on your forehead.
Now, just a quick little note is that back in the day, sometimes
slaves would be branded on their head or their hands to kind of
show who they belong to, right? And so this passage kind of
flips that right? And, and it says like, OK, who,
whose are we, right? Whose are we?
And, and Moses is this, this, this call for them to bind it as
a sign on their hand and a symbol on their forehead is
like, hey, no, I, I follow God, I follow God's word.
This is this is what it is also a reminder throughout the day
visibly. Yeah, I have a watch here.
And some of us might too. Just look at it frequently.
And and you know, if there was Scripture 2121 chapters of
instructions that Moses was saying, hey, bind to your hand,
put them on your forehead. Like how much more we have more
than 21 chapters. We have the whole Bible 66 books
right to to bind on our hand and to put on our forehead.
How often are we looking at Scripture in verse 9 says write
them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates.
Now, at times, at the time, and also even still today, some
people put like gargoyles or spells or things to kind of ward
off evil at the, the front of their house, right?
But Moses, he was motioning for people to put God's word there
instead, right? To say, hey, to make a public
declaration of like, hey, no, this is we're not doing any of
the, the lowercase G God expelling evil and things like
that. We're, we're putting God's word
here. We worship God, We trust that
God will take care of us and he will provide for us, right?
And, and we're living according to that.
The city gates were a place, a public place for any foreign
visitor to kind of see. And, and it's the first thing
that they see as they come in. And, and it's a declaration of
like, Hey, we worship God. We follow God's Word right?
Now, some of these things might be you have to kind of take it
all together, right? Because if you just take the
actions, the practical actions, right?
And you do these things, you have them in your heart, OK?
You're thinking about God's Word.
You're talking to people about God's Word.
You have it written down, you have it for show, you have it as
a public declaration, all that. But if you don't live it out,
it's all for nothing. If you don't live it out, it's
all for nothing. We're just playing the Christian
game. You put on the Christian outfit,
you do the Christian thing. But if you don't do it when no
one's watching, if you don't do it when you're really tempted,
if you don't do it when no one's looking, if you don't do it when
you don't get caught, does it really matter?
Do we really still follow God when it we don't get the credit
for it when no one's watching? Now, I want us to get practical.
We could just follow all of these things, right?
But some of us just need to start with God's Word.
We just need to start. I grew up going to church.
And so these things, you know, keeping God's word in our heart,
repeating it to our children, are the people around us talking
about it day and night, binding it on our hands and our
foreheads, making it visible around where we go, writing it
on doorposts, writing it down, and things like, I'm so used to
that, right? It's just second nature.
It's just what we should be doing.
It's what we do, right? But some of us, me included, I
think we just need to start and get back to God's Word.
Think about this. Moses instructed the Israelites
to do all of these things, not with a small little pamphlet or
a nice little flyer, small handful of verses.
He gave them 21 chapters and said, hey, keep this in your
heart, these 21 chapters. Repeat these 21 chapters to your
children. Talk about these 21 chapters day
and night. Put these 21 chapters on your
hands and on your foreheads. Put these right out, these 21
chapters and put it on your doorposts and write them out and
put them on your city gates, these 21 chapters.
I want you to do all of these things with these 21 chapters.
But how many of us, me included, have a small pamphlet or a flyer
that we have instead of 21 chapters?
Right. How many of us have that small
pamphlet instead of 21 chapters? And, and frankly, like the
Israelites at this time, they had 21 chapters.
Yeah, but we have no excuse. 3000 years later, we have 66
books. Do we have those 66 books in our
heart? Are we repeating those 66 books
to our children? Are we talking about those 66
books day and night? Are we writing those 66 books
out? I've never written them out.
I tried to type it out when I was young, trying to practice
typing and things. I only got through Genesis, like
10. It's a lot, a lot of writing.
Can't imagine yet how many of us have other things in our heart.
How many of us have competing allegiances and idols in our
heart? Things that we like and that
we're chasing? How many of us repeat other
things to our children in addition to scriptures?
Those things might be good, but are we intentional about
repeating the scripture? How many of us?
Of course, we talk about other things besides Scripture, but
how much Scripture do we talk about day and night?
If we're to like just do a command F or control F and look
for the transcript of like what we say in a day, how much
Scripture is in that transcript? And we look at our writing or
our typing, how much of that in proportion to everything else we
write or type is Scripture? I think some of us, many of us
me included, need to start with God's Word.
My encouragement, my challenge to us and to me today is this.
Let's read more. Read more of God's Word.
Let's read more of God's Word. Let's have God's Word in our
heart. Less of the other stuff.
Let's share it with our kids. People around us talk about it
day and night more more often than we do.
Let's write it down. Let's let Scripture, let's let
God's word be on our lips day and night.
But first let's let's read more of God's word.
I'm going to pray for us and then I'm going to just send you
all to kind of just reflect and and meditate with God.
Lord, I just want us to, I want this time to be a time of
confession or what are the ways that we have traded your word
for other things in our hearts, in our words, in the things that
we write and type in our lives. Even let's take this time to
just be with you and God and just confess and, and let's,
let's work on let's work towards repentance of, of reading God's
word more.