The sermon, titled 'What Should We Say?', focuses on the latter part of Deuteronomy 6, which instructs believing parents on how to respond when their children ask about the significance of God's commandments. It emphasizes the importance of not only understanding the 'what' of faith practices but also explaining the 'why'. The sermon highlights that children are likely to question the meaning behind religious practices, and parents should be prepared to answer by sharing their personal experiences of deliverance and transformation through God. The sermon underscores the distinction between mere religious observance and genuine faith, warning against the dangers of moralism. It calls for parents to communicate their personal testimonies, illustrating the transformative power of God's grace. The analogy of Israel's deliverance from Egypt serves as a metaphor for spiritual liberation from sin, urging believers to live in obedience to God as a response to His saving grace.

The title of the message today is, What Should We Say? The end of Deuteronomy chapter 6 instructs believing parents what they should say. When we think about Deuteronomy 6, If you're familiar with Deuteronomy 6 at all, you're familiar with the first part of the chapter, what's known as the Shema. Hebrews or Jews know it extremely well. And it's the portion that says, the Lord our God is one God and you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.

And you should teach these things diligently to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up, these are things that just roll right off of our lips. You can't quote me anything from the end of Deuteronomy chapter 6. The portion of our scripture that is the text for the message today. Why are we here at the end of Deuteronomy chapter 6 and not the beginning of Deuteronomy chapter 6? Well, it's because it instructs believing parents to expect a question from their children, to anticipate getting this question, and it tells us what we should say when we get the question so be ready for it and when you get it say this It gives us a framework for explaining why we are doing what we are doing when we exercise our faith.

So our children are watching us in the exercise of our faith. One day they're bound to ask, why we do that? Why are we doing what we're doing? And Deuteronomy chapter 6, the end of the chapter, instructs us into what we should say. It's so helpful.

Let's pray. God, we need all of Your Word. I know we need this. I know the believing parents in the room need to hear these things. And I know the children in their homes need to hear these things too.

So I pray that there would be such weight to the preaching of your word today. That we wouldn't be able to come and go and say, that's nice, But that we would feel a sense of the urgency of the things that you're pressing home to us today. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen. Well, we almost always subdivide. We're subdividing today.

So let's start by looking at Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 20. And then we'll keep moving. Follow along as I reread Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 20. When your son asks you in time to come saying, what is the meaning of the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord our God has commanded you? So, from this verse, we want to ask and answer the questions.

Who is asking the question and what is it? What is the question? Our children are asking the question, when your son asks you, now this Hebrew word translated son is a masculine noun, And so the majority of the time it is translated son, but about 32% of the time of the 4906 occurrences in the Old Testament. So we have a Hebrew word that shows up 4906 times in the Old Testament. And about one in three of those times, it's actually translated children.

It would be perfectly appropriate to translate it children here. It's translated son. I have no gripes with that translation, but just understand it doesn't have to just mean a male offspring. It can simply mean your children and it's translated that way one time in three across all those instances in the Old Testament. Our children are asking the question.

There's nothing about the question that is gender-specific at all. You're as likely to be asked it from a daughter as you are from a son. What's the question? The question that you're anticipating, expecting a son or daughter to ask is this. What is the meaning of the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord our God has commanded you?

In other words, this book has testimonies. It says stuff about stuff. What does it mean? What is it really about? This book has statutes.

This book has judgments and commandments. What is the meaning? What's this really all about? In other words, What is this all about? Great question.

What does it mean? Why do you trust it? Why do you trust it? Why do we do it? What is all this?

Why would our children ask these questions? I think it's because while the believing household centers around the what of these things, we often spend very little time explaining the why. Our children are bound to ask, meaning we center our home around these things. Let's all say amen. Yes, let's center around these things.

That's good. That's what we should be doing, but they're just in the what. And we don't talk very often about the why. So God in Deuteronomy chapter 6 is teaching us to anticipate At some point they're bound to ask you why. When you study the Old Testament, it becomes very clear that the Israelites were never free from an awareness of the surrounding peoples, it wasn't just Israel, off with a big buffer zone.

This is the Old Testament. They're not in the middle of nowhere with a big buffer zone and they're never free from an awareness. We're surrounded by other people, other nations, and their gods. Moabites worship Chimosh, the name of their God, and they have their Chimosh things, the things that they do when they worship their God. The Philistines have Dagon, and they have their Dagon things, the things that they do when they worship their God.

The Ammonites have Milcom, and They have their milcom things, the things that they do when they worship their God. The Babylonians have Marduk. They have their Marduk things. The things that they do when they worship their God, etc., etc., etc. You can name more people, you can name more gods.

What scripture teaches and what is true is that Jehovah Elohim, remember that from Genesis, The Lord God, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Scripture, is the one true God, and true God, and every other God is simply an idol, a false God, not a God at all. But if we're not careful in worshiping the one true God according to His Word, our children, aware of the people around us and aware of their gods, have a sense of equivalency. Are you with me? They're doing what we're doing, just a different flavor. As if all any of us are doing is scratching a religious itch.

Almost all people have a religious itch. A sense that there's something beyond us, so we know that we should worship and I scratch my itch this way and you scratch your itch that way. As if the key line of demarcation, the key separating line, what separates is between religious and not religious. Children, look at me. We want to say to you, with all the urgency that we can muster, That is not the key line of separation.

Religious and not religious is not the key line. The key line of separation is worshiping the one true God of Scripture according to His Word, or worshiping something that's not a God at all. Everyone is worshiping. This we know. You will worship.

You will value something and bow to something. You will serve something. So that is who is asking the question. Our children. You should expect it.

Deuteronomy 6 is teaching us to anticipate it. And that is the question. What's all this really mean? What's all this about? And spoiler alert, the answer can't be, This is how our group chooses to scratch our religious itch.

That's not the answer. We all got a religious itch and our group chooses to scratch our itch this way. Terrible answer, not the answer. That's not what we're doing here. Are you with me?

That's not what we're doing here. If that is what you're doing here, I invite you to repent and believe the gospel and be saved. Because if you're just here because you're a lungquist, and this is what the lungquists do on Sundays. Or, you're just here because you're scratching a religious itch. You are not born again.

The New Testament uses radical language. Born again! Born again! The old things have passed away, and all things are new. Does that sound like scratching a religious itch to you?

Does that sound like just following in the family habits to you? Born again! Let's keep going. Let's keep going. Verses 21-23.

Then you shall say to your son, We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and the Lord showed signs and wonders before our eyes, great and severe against Egypt, Pharaoh and all his household. Then he brought us out from there that he might bring us in to give us the land of which he swore to our forefathers." So we're being told what to say, believing parents are being told what to say when they're asked this question by their children, where should we start? Believing parents, what should you say when your children ask you, What's all this about? Or even, how should you instruct them before they even ask?

There's nothing that requires us to wait until the question comes. If they ask, Answer this way, but you don't have to wait till they ask. Where should we start? Start here. I was a slave.

That's a strange starting point. They didn't ask you about that. They asked you about the commands. What's the deal with all these commands? I was a slave.

And this rescuing God, this saving God came and got me out of my bondage. Son, daughter, I was so deep in bondage that I didn't even know that I needed to be rescued. Son, daughter, Jeremiah 17, 9 says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. That was me. I didn't even know I needed to be rescued.

I thought all was well. I thought I was good. God showed me how desperately wicked I was. And he opened up the beauties of his saving son to me. He came and got me.

If he'd have left me alone, I would have thought all was well, all the way into destruction, but he came and got me out of that. Some of us will say that, something like that, some version of that. Or, Son, daughter, I was in such a desperate condition. I knew I was an enemy of God, and I couldn't have cared less. I shook my fist at God.

I hated God. I wanted nothing to do with God. Somehow He made me love him. I don't know how. Somehow he took me out of that state and convinced me that he was more precious than anything, and showed me who I really was.

Some of us will say that or some version of that. But in the end, you know it's really all the same story. I was lost. Now I'm found. I was blind.

Now I see. My children, this rescuing God had to conquer the mightiest enemies to do it. Coming to get me out of my sin was no small thing. Sin stood in the way, he conquered it. Death stood in the way, he conquered it.

The world, my flesh, the devil stood in the way, He conquered them. He sent his one and only son, a mighty conqueror, for me, so that I so that I could be free, so that I could live. These enemies were mighty, but the saving work of Jesus was mightier still. It's a miracle. Listen to what the psalmist says in Psalm 66 verse 16.

We don't know who this psalmist is. The psalmist says this in Psalm 66 verse 16, Come in here, all you who fear God, and I will declare what he has done for my soul. Come here, I will declare what He's done for my soul." Deuteronomy 6 says, do that believing parent, do that. Son, daughter, come here. There is a real God.

I know there are people around us worshiping gods. They're not real. There are no gods at all, but there is a real God who rules from heaven, And He rescues. He comes and gets sinners. Let me tell you what He has done for my soul.

Let me show you where he has revealed himself to the human race. Oh, believing parents, may God keep us from skipping past all this to moral instruction. God save us! From skipping past all this to moral instruction. God save us from skipping past all this to moral Be good.

God wants you to be good. This is what it means to be good. No, start here. I was a slave. Don't start there.

Start here. I was a slave. Son, daughter, that's the problem. We're not good. That's your gospel?

You're going to tell them to be good? They're not good! You're not good! We should be good. The law of God is good, right, just.

The Law has never been the problem. It's a reflection of the perfections of a perfectly good God. But I broke that Law in thought, word, deed, ten thousand times over. God didn't leave me there. He came and got me.

I was dead in sin. He made me alive. I was in bondage. He set me free. Let me tell you what Jesus did for my soul.

Believing parents, Start there. It's not the sum total. We're going to move on. There's more to the text. But start there.

Verses 24 and 25. And the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always, that He might preserve us alive as it is this day. Then it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all these commandments before the Lord our God as He has commanded us. Where should we make sure to get to? So, amen, I was a slave, God set me free.

That's not the sum total of all that we're to teach our children. Where should we make sure that we also get to? Son, daughter, who is this God who is commanding? There's no getting around it. God is commanding.

But who is this God who is commanding? The God who rescues. Do you think that matters? Do you think that matters when we're thinking about obedience? Who's this God who's commanding?

The God who rescues from bondage. The God who takes the dead and makes them alive, He's the one who's commanding. Who is this God we should fear? The God who always has our good in mind. Not fear God period.

It would be fine to say fear God period, but that's not what we have here. Fear God comma. He always has your good in mind. That's different. Obey God.

Not obey God period, obey God, comma. He's a rescuing God. Fear God, comma. He always has your good in mind. Look at that phrase in verse 24, for our good always.

For our good always. He always has our good in mind. Look back at Deuteronomy 5.29. I don't even have to turn the page of my Bible. Maybe you have to do one page turn.

It's on the same page. How my Bible is laid out. Deuteronomy 5.29. God says, Oh that they had such a heart in them that they would fear me and always keep all my commandments that it might be well with them and with their children forever. It would have been fine for him to say, oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear me and always keep all my commandments, period.

That's not what it says. Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would always fear me and keep all my commandments, comma, that it might be well with them and with their children forever. Always well with them, continually well with them, unendingly well with them. This is in the chapter with the Ten Commandments. Nothing's better for your welfare than the Ten Commandments and obeying them.

Let's look briefly at two New Testament texts to drive home the point. The first is Romans 12.1. I've been really selective to be really focused. It's one verse. Romans 12.1, We memorized it when we were there.

Paul writes, I beseech you therefore brethren, I plead with you brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God which is your reasonable service. Paul pleads with you earnestly that you set the mercies of God before your eyes in full view and keep them out ahead of your view. So you never lose sight of His mercies. And that with the mercies of God always laid out before you that you offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. Why?

That's reasonable service. Serving God, obeying God, following God, is nothing but a reasonable service when you lay the mercies of God out in view. If the mercies of God are out of you, it all seems so heavy and impossible and contrary. Just lay the mercies of God in Jesus Christ out before you, and the perspective changes radically. This is the farthest thing from moralism.

Can't you see that's what Paul is doing here? He's setting, walking with God in obedience a million miles away from moralism. He says, okay, set all the blessings and sweeteners, all the things you didn't deserve, but He lavished on us. Set them before your view, now walk with Him." A living sacrifice. Such a reasonable service.

The second is Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2 has this remarkable ordering that keeps us from getting the cart before the horse. Try to get a cart to pull a horse. Wrong order, not going anywhere. The horse needs to pull the cart.

The order matters. It's the same two things. You put them in the wrong order. You're going nowhere. Ephesians 2 puts the horse in front pulling the cart.

Amen. So let me read from Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2 verse 1, and you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins. So He's writing to people who used to be dead, but that God made alive. They used to be dead and in sin, but now God has made them alive.

Look at verses 4 and 5. But God who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. I Look at verses 8 through 10. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So what's the horse? The horse, the thing that must be out front, must be first, must be pulling, is the grace of God coming and making dead sinners alive. A gift, faith, trusting in the work of Jesus Christ, a gift, not of works, or you would boast about it. What is the cart?

What comes after? What has to be pulled by that? Good works? You have to be created in Christ Jesus, made alive from the dead. And then, people who have been created in Christ Jesus who were dead and now are alive are His workmanship and He's prepared in advance good work for them to walk in.

So then having received the grace of God, the gift of faith, then you walk in good works that God had in his mind before you were ever born. You see how far that is from moralism. You guys get your act together. Yeah, I tried that, and I failed at that, and I tried it again, and failed again, and tried again, and failed again, and tried again, and failed again. I need somebody to raise me from the dead I need somebody to get me out of bondage Then I can engage in these things that God had in his mind for me to walk.

Applications, I give you three. One. Children. This one's for children. Parents, you can check email now.

Don't you dare. Children, get the key line of demarcation set in your mind. Get the key separating line set in your mind. The key separating line is between those who have been rescued by this saving God and those who are still in bondage. It's not people who do religious stuff and people who don't do religious stuff.

It's not people who are sitting in church today and people who are not sitting in church today. It's people who have been rescued out of their bondage by the person and work of Jesus Christ and those who are still bound fast. Jesus came to make the dead alive. And to set the captives free. Freedom is yours for the asking.

It can't be that simple. It is that simple. That's what the Bible says. You have to really trust Jesus, and there's a counterfeit to that and a fake to that. We all know that.

But if you really trust Jesus, you will be saved. He doesn't turn away anyone who come to Him by faith. Two, Parents, do your children know the story of how this rescuing God came and got you? When was the last time they heard it? Let them hear it again.

They need to have heard it enough that they can tell it. If your kids can't tell the story of how this rescuing God came and got you. You haven't told it enough. Tell it again. Have you told them what the Lord has done for your soul?

But we're reformed. We don't believe in personal testimony. Says who? We believe in straight gospel preaching. Amen.

We do believe in straight gospel preaching and personal testimony. Has God done anything for your soul? If He hasn't, you have nothing to offer. If He has, you have everything to offer. Three.

Understand that obedience to the commands of God are the most fitting, reasonable thing for a rescued people. What could be more fitting for a rescued people than that you would serve the rescuer? That's all Paul is saying. How did you not? I was dead.

He raised me to life. I was in bondage. He released me. I'm free. Okay.

Now, go walk in the good works that he prepared beforehand. Beforehand. Death to moralism, But hooray for obedience. They're not the same thing. Moralism and obedience to God, true heartfelt obedience to God are totally different things.

Let's pray. God, I know that there must be many sons and daughters in this room who are here because who are here because their mom and dad said get in the car. God have mercy, Have mercy. I wonder how many times I got in the car for that reason and went to church. Smug and self-righteous.

Thank you for these truths that help us see things rightly, that strip away our self-righteousness, show us how desperate our need is and send us to your son for mercy. Pray that would happen today. Ask these things in Jesus name, amen. Men, over to you. That just struck home in so many ways.

I just wanted to say something real quick, and I'll keep it short. But just not long ago I was scratching all those itches. A lot of different, I don't know how to explain that, but I was just wrong, right? It was just not correct. And the story we get to share, The first thing I thought I had to read in the Bible was our story is the bridge to his story, you know, and without being specific and real, raw, and honest with it.

I did the PG version for the kids for a reason, but when I speak to other people, I don't. I tell them everything because then they know it's not moralism. It's like raw pain and angst and awful things that I could never save myself from. So if I redact anything, I'm doing a disservice to them. But for the kids, they often ask, well, what do you do wrong, Dad?

And it's a whole lot, but I can't tell them everything yet. I will, but I give them the stuff that they can comprehend and process. But he saves us from all that, And the strangers who hear it, when they hear just the awful mess that I was, it makes them want to pick the book up. Not because I said how great I am, because I'm not. Awful.

But he saved me. And that saving process started from birth there's not some line of demarcation like where this was it like this is the moment there was a moment but everything that happened was of his design that's really cool So that's what I thought so love you all. Thank you That that made me think in this Are we saying I love to tell the story? I love to tell the story more, the more and more I tell the story. And the more I told the story and the more I heard the story from others, the more I realized I wasn't being as brutal with myself as I needed to be.

And As the years went on and I learned I need to be more brutal and I was more brutal with who I was, the better the story was. Because it was honest. It was true. I don't, I didn't, I don't know, 15 years ago, about 20 years ago, I realized I really was an enemy. I really was an enemy.

I really did hate God. I really thought I was fine. I don't know a day in my life that I didn't go to church. I don't know a day in my life I didn't hear the Gospel. How awful was it that I hated that?

Did I go around saying I hated it? No. But the truth of Scripture says, the truth of God in His Word says I hated it. So in order to love to tell the story, you gotta tell the story. You gotta tell it and tell it again and tell it.

And the more you tell it, the more I tell it, the more I'm going to realize, ooh, I'm missing something. I need to say that. And it's not just that you get in the gutter and say this and that I don't I don't have a gutter story. I do have a story of what scripture says what God says I was an enemy and this is how I hated God. I rejected him for almost a decade of my life even having all the advantages the Israelites had and more.

The more you know about God, the more you can make a very strong case that He hated my smug self-righteousness more than he hates the sin of the drug addict biker. He hates smug self-righteousness so much. Smug self-righteousness so much. So there's nothing to be bashful for, for us who don't have, for those in the room who don't have us more scandalous testimony. I said it in the sermon I'll say it again, it's the same story.

It's the same story. There's a couple all-caps words on my notes to take home and keep unpacking with the kids. Perspective, I think, is one proper perspective of our sin. You know, we often say with the gospel, God, man, Christ response, it all starts with the recognition of the chasm that exists there. And even for those who came to Christ maybe growing up in church or came to Christ from a life in sin I think that proper perspective sets that right.

The moralism was the other word we're going to talk more about moralism But the metaphor of being in Egypt, being in bondage, is just something that has been on my mind this week. And for the kids here, you know, when you spend, many of the children of Israel grew up in Egypt. It was home to them. And as uncomfortable as that home became, because they were under the harsh rule of the Egyptians, and they were enslaved and had to work very hard. There are ways that we all dress up.

And I'm just thinking of, you know, that metaphor that our home in bondage to make it feel cozier to us. Yeah, sure, that was a really hard day out in the heat under the hard labor of Pharaoh, but I've dressed it up inside and this feels good to me for the night and I'll get my rest and go back at it tomorrow. And there's ways in which when we're in bondage to sin, when we're in church or when we're you know in a home where we hear many of the truths of God, and if you don't get to what Jason said today, which is repent and believe, faith is first, going from death to life is first, then you will dress up that home in Egypt and you will find as you get further and further into life, what am I dealing with? Why am I facing so many obstacles? Why am I not seeing sin in trials the right way?

That's because you're fixing it up in Egypt. You have not been set free, you've not been released from the bondage of your sin. So you have to go out. You have to be separate. You have to believe.

You have to be delivered. In Hebrews 11, 24 it says, By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater than the riches and the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward." So deliverance from sin doesn't look like deliverance from trials, it doesn't look like deliverance from many, many struggles in life, but you have to take the first step of faith and obedience to do that and then not to be tempted to look back and say it seems comfortable there so anyway that metaphor kids as you think of being delivered from from Egypt is something I think that's very helpful for our own Let's begin our time of the Lord's Supper. Let's just stay right in our sermon text because there's a straight line between what we're studying this morning and the Lord's Supper. So read again verses Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 20 through 23. When your son asks you in time to come saying what is the meaning of the testimonies the Statutes and the judgments which the Lord our God has commanded you then you shall say to your son We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and the Lord showed us signs and wonders before our eyes great and severe against Egypt Pharaoh and all his household the Lord Supper is really a celebration of the mighty hand of God in setting captives free.

So Egypt and bondage in Egypt is a picture type, something that points forward to and teaches us about the greater spiritual spiritual reality of God saving sinners and The mighty works done to set the people free from Egypt are the mighty works. The greater spirituality are the mighty works that Jesus did on the cross. It's the mighty work of the cross. So this is our celebration where we remember all the enemies that are conquered at the cross. Sin, death, the world, your flesh, the devil, and how now we're free.

So, if you belong to the Lord by faith alone, in Christ alone, and If you've publicly identified that his death is your death, and so his life is your life by being baptized. And if you're willing to obey Paul's commandment that we examine ourselves when we come to this time. We never do it thoughtlessly. We never do it carelessly, but we just ask the Lord to do business with us. Show me the things that I need to turn from and then when he shows you something you turn from it.

If those three things are true of you, please participate with us in the Lord's Supper. Let's give thanks for the bread. Jesus, thank you for taking on the form of a bond servant, taking on humanness, taking on flesh, so that you could stand as a substitute and take the place of those who you'd become like in that way. Thank you for the bread, something tangible we can hold it, smell it, taste it, see it. That reminds us that you came and lived life here and allowed your body to be broken so that I wouldn't have to die for my sins.

This is precious and we thank you for it in Jesus name, Amen.