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Reset | Family: God's Way · Bayside Davis Podcast

0:09
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter 6, starting in verse 4, is a very famous section of Scripture.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it is the preeminent declaration of faith, not only in just the Old Testament, but in Judaism.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: This is, if you will, the John 3.16 of the Old Testament, the greatest declaration of faith, and it's known as the Shema.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Now, if Pastor Wesley was here, he would have pronounced it better, and you would probably get a deep dive into the history and context of the Shema.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: That's about as deep as I go.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: It's called the Shema, but it is a covenant, it is covenant language.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: It is the people of God, it is the nation of Israel, not just saying that Jesus, we love you with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: It is covenantal language where they are saying that Yahweh and Yahweh alone is our God.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: You and you alone are the God that we're going to follow.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: And then he goes on to say, you know, impress this upon your children.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: Now I know that the Bayside Davis, the demographics, skew on the younger side, and maybe there's a chunk of people in this room that don't have kids.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh maybe there's a chunk of uh people in this room that will never have kids.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: And so here's the temptation this morning as we look at this series on reset, and we we look at resetting the family, is I want to kind of change our perspective or our paradigm on what family is.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Because if you're like, I don't have a family, I don't have kids, I'm like 20, I'm going through, I'm trying to get my degree here, Cameron, I'm not trying to raise kids right now.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: Moses is addressing hundreds of thousands, millions of people, the nation of Israel, many of whom either didn't have kids or were kids.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: And yet he's addressing them as one people group.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: And one thing that we've lost in Western culture, I believe, is we've grown to be more and more siloed, is that this is my family, this is my personhood, and it's very distinct and separate from your family and your personhood.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: But what we see as we walk through scripture in ancient times and even in different cultures today, because I've married into a culture like this, is that there is this belief and this idea that those are not just your kids over there in that room.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: Those are our kids because we are one people group, we are one family.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: And the grandparents in the room, that's not just like your grandparents, these are our grandparents, these are our people because we are one people.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: And Moses is addressing the nation of Israel, and they speak in the Shema, this covenantal language, saying that Yahweh and Yahweh alone is our God.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: And then we, in response to him and him alone being our God, as one people group, begin to see our faith as not just like, well, you got kids back there, you better not screw them up.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: Like, I have a vested interest in those kids because this is our family, and this is our faith, and it's on me just as much as it's on you to hand that down.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: So, whether you have a family or not, whether you have kids or not, whether one day you will even have kids or not, doesn't matter.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: Moses is speaking to one people, just as God wants to speak to his one people today.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: We are one people united under the Shema, the declaration that he and he alone is our God.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: And my fear, my my my worry is that what we're starting to see in 2026 and in kind of Western church culture is that church has kind of devolved into uh almost like where you shop for groceries.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: If I was to ask you where you shop for groceries, it's like, are you, you know, you keep it simple and just go to Walmart?
4:14
SPEAKER_00: Walmart's very cheap.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: I just maybe don't buy your lettuce there.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh are you a weirdo that shops at Whole Foods?
4:21
SPEAKER_00: I actually I forgot.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Davis kicked Whole Foods out, didn't they?
4:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I wrote this for Roseville.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: David's a whole different beast.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: You shop at Trader Joe's.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh my wife loves Trader Joe's.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: I'll be honest, I've never had a positive experience at Trader Joe's.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: The worst parking lots in the history of mankind.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh the restaurants, uh, the the grocery stores are so small, and everybody in there collectively, it's their first day on earth.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: Nobody knows what they're doing, nobody knows where they're going.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: They're just like, uh, I think I'm gonna walk over here without looking.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, my wife will be like, hey, can you pick up a few things on the way home?
4:59
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, sure, as long as it's not Trader Joe's.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: Um if you're if you work for Trader Joe's, if you own and operate Trader Joe's, love you, God's just working on my heart.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: But it's like if I was to ask you, like, where do you go grocery shopping?
5:13
SPEAKER_00: That's almost the level to which church has become today.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey, where do you attend church?
5:18
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, well, first of all, we got to stop thinking of church as just a place that I attend, because as you get back to Deuteronomy chapter 6 and the origins of the church, the origins of God's people and family, it was never something that you attend.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: It was always something that you belong to.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: Think about it like this.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: If I was to ask, if church is a family, if I was to ask, hey, what family do you attend?
5:44
SPEAKER_00: Like, what are you talking about?
5:45
SPEAKER_00: Like, what a weird way to ask that question.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm a father, I have two kids, and I have a wife.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: I have a vested interest in our household.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: And if you ask me, like, hey, camera, what family do you attend?
5:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I don't attend my family.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: I belong to my family and they belong to me.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: This is the level to which church should sit in our lives and so often doesn't.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: And we have boiled it down to merely what church do you attend?
6:11
SPEAKER_00: What church makes you feel good?
6:13
SPEAKER_00: You like to show up, and it's like it's encouraging, and they speak truth, but not too much truth, that it gets uncomfortable, and like they got some good snacks, and everybody's very nice and smiles, and everybody's fake, and nobody talks about real things, and then we just go home, and I can't wait to do it again next month because I only go once a month.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: That's a place that you just attend, but that was never the intention when God began to establish his people group in his church here on earth.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: The goal, the mission, the heart of the church was always that it would not simply be something that you attend, but something that you belong to.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: And as we dive into Deuteronomy chapter 6, the Shema, we begin to see that church and God have to occupy a different space in our lives than the other things that we simply do or attend.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: There has to be something deeper, there has to be something greater.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: And so as we look at how do we hit reset with our family, and I mean that with our nuclear family, our blood family, but also our church family as a whole, as we begin to look at how do I hand off my faith well.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: Three things from the Shema, three things from the text that we see.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: The first one is this is that you have to center it.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: He says right at the top, hear, O Israel.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: Shema is the Hebrew word for hear.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: It's the very first word of this text.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: He says, Hear this, O Israel.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is very important because at the time polytheism was everywhere.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: People worshiped hundreds, if not thousands, of gods.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: The thing is, is that worshiping one God didn't guarantee protection from another God.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: So you had to worship and sacrifice this God, but then you had to come over here and worship and sacrifice this God, but then this God might be getting you, and then this God might smite you.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: And so it was just like hundreds of thousands of gods that you had to worry about.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: And Moses is like, we got it easy here in Israel.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: We got one God we got to worry about.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: And he says, the Lord our God, at a time in human history where polytheism was all over the place, he says, No, no, no, Yahweh, the Lord our God, is one God.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: He is our God and solely our God.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: The temptation is to just write this off, this monotheistic look and view of God.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: In the ancient times, when people were a little crazy, a little superstitious, and it's like, yeah, they had hundreds of thousands of gods, and that was then, but this is now, we still have hundreds of thousands of gods.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: Because if we want to get really honest in church, we all daily worship things that are not God.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: But it has occupied the space of God in your life.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: The first thing that we have to do with Yahweh, with the Lord our God, is we have to center it in our lives.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've ever realized this.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: If you got young kids at home, or maybe you got young kids in your extended family, or maybe you've been around with young kids, they have a stunningly low bar when it comes to being friends.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh there, they'll be at the park, kid will walk up and he's like, hey, you want to play?
9:21
SPEAKER_00: It's like, yeah, let's play.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you never seen this kid before in your life?
9:25
SPEAKER_00: You don't know if he's a seven-year-old serial killer, but it's like, let's be friends, right?
9:29
SPEAKER_00: You want to play, I want to play.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: Let's get away from the tyranny of mom and dad, because all they want to do is ruin our lives.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: It's like, you want to have a good time, I want to have a good time.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: Like the bar for friendship is so low with kids.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: We took our kids to Legoland this summer.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: We have a seven-year-old and a four-year-old.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: Our seven-year-old immediately jumps in with these other boys, but there's a huge playground at Legoland, and they're just running around and playing.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: And all I hear is, Bro, come over here.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: Hey, bro, look at this.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Carver comes back for some water, and I'm like, hey, do you know his name?
9:56
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, No.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, cool, cool, cool.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: And so he goes back and they're like, 30 minutes, they're just running around, they're playing together.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: The time comes, well, we gotta go.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm like, Carter, we gotta go.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: And then his parents, the other kids' parents were like standing 20 yards away, and so we just kind of, you know, I'm giving a nod.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm not trying to be your friend, don't try to be my friend.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: I have enough friends.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: And so the boys come back, and I'm like, all right, Bub, we gotta go.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: And my son hugs this other kid.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Carter, did you just hug him?
10:24
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Yeah.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Do you know him from like school?
10:27
SPEAKER_00: Or like, do they live where we live?
10:29
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, No.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Do you know his name?
10:31
SPEAKER_00: No.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you just hug somebody and you don't even know their name?
10:35
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Yeah, I'd die for that guy.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Like, kids have a stunningly low bar because it's like, you want to have fun?
10:41
SPEAKER_00: I want to have fun.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: Let's unite under that banner.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: What is Moses laying out in Deuteronomy chapter 6?
10:47
SPEAKER_00: That we have one thing that should unite all of us.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: The Lord our God is one.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: That it is our pursuit of Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: That all of us, that is the banner in which we fall under.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: That is the banner in which we unite.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: And the truth is that that's not always the case.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: Because what has happened in a world that has grown more and more divisive and more or more okay, being divided, is we say, You love Jesus?
11:21
SPEAKER_00: I love Jesus.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: But who did you vote for in the last election cycle?
11:26
SPEAKER_00: You love Jesus?
11:27
SPEAKER_00: I love Jesus.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: But what kind of lifestyle do you walk out on Monday?
11:32
SPEAKER_00: We have changed this covenantal language in the Shema of the Lord our God is one.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: And that is the banner in which we unite under too.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the Lord our God is one, but also our political beliefs.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: And also our sexual orientation, and also the lifestyle in which we're comfortable living.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: And those become co-qualifiers under which we unite.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't fit my co-qualifiers, then you can't be united with me.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: Moses in the Shema, in Deuteronomy chapter 6, is urging the nation of Israel to get back to uniting under God and God alone.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: And if the church does not follow suit in 2026, it will fall apart.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: That God is the only thing under which we have been called to unite under.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: He is the banner, he is the bar.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: And it is in him and him alone that we are together united.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: That is what we fall under.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: It's what we were designed and created to fall under.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: And yet, everything in our lives seems to be pulling that out of the center of our lives.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: I probably told this story before, but uh a couple years ago, Carter, our son, he came to me and he said, Dad, why is there gravity on Earth but not in space?
12:59
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to encourage any scientists in the room to tune out for this part of the message.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, son, that's easy.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: And I opened Chat GPT and I said, Why is there gravity on Earth and not in space?
13:12
SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, it's like this, son.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: I said, the the biggest and heaviest and fastest thing in our solar system is it creates something called gravity.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: It creates the most gravity.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: The sun is the biggest and heaviest thing in our solar system, and so it pulls everything into orbit around it.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: If the earth was bigger than the sun, then the the earth would pull the sun into orbit.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Scientist, how am I doing?
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Am I doing pretty good?
13:37
SPEAKER_00: Okay, just smile and nod and be like, we'll work on this later.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: Theologian, not a scientist.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: And he's just like, as he's looking at me the way that some of you are looking at me now, his eyes just kind of glazed over.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if he really understood my explanation of gravity.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, well, your mom will tackle that in second grade.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: But more than just understanding that about his solar system, my hope and my prayer for my son is that he understands that the same thing is true of his soul.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: That there is one thing that can sit at the center of who you are.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: And if it is not Jesus, things in your life will begin to fall out of orbit.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: This is why addiction can be so difficult to break.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: Because you spend years giving something your time, your money, your value, your self-worth, and it begins to pull your finances into orbit.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: It begins to pull your relationships into orbit.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: But when anything but Jesus occupies the center of who you are, things in your life begin to crash into each other.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: And Moses is saying in Deuteronomy chapter 6 that you have to center this in your life.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: Jesus and Jesus alone can occupy the center of who you are.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: And listen up, it's true for the church.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the only thing that can sit at the center of all of this, that can unite us, that can cast us forward, that can cast vision for the future.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: Like it's just Jesus.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: It's true for your solar system, it's true for your soul, and it's true for God's church.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: But whatever has the greatest mass in your life will have a gravitational pull on your life.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: And if you want to know what has a gravitational pull in my life, I want you to go home today, open up your bank statement, and see where your money goes.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: That will give you a great indication of a gravitational pull in your life.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: I want you to look at your calendar and tell me where your free time goes.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: I want you to sit alone this afternoon in 10 minutes of silence and watch where your thoughts drift.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: And it will begin to tell you what has gravitational pull in your life.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: And listen up, I'm not saying that nothing else should have gravitational pull in your life.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: Your family should have gravitational pull in your life.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: Your career should have gravitational pull in your life.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: Those are all good things, but it cannot have the greatest gravitational pull in your life.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: That has to be Jesus.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: Parents in the room, you want a really brutally honest answer?
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Ask your kid.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: Hey, what is the most important thing to mom and dad?
16:25
SPEAKER_00: And I want to warn you, you may not like what they say.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: Because kids notice things that you don't want them to notice.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: And they say things that sometimes you're too afraid to say.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: Young people in the room that don't have kids, ask your friend.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: Say, hey, be brutally honest with me.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: When you look at my life, what's the most important thing in my life?
16:47
SPEAKER_00: Because almost everything in your life is fighting to have gravitational control of everything in your life your finances, your relationships, your thoughts, your self-worth, your identity, everything.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: And Moses is saying that if you do not center Jesus in your life, everything in the orbit of your life begins to crash into each other.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: The orbit of your life reveals the center of your life.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: Jesus must sit at the center.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: Second thing is this we can't just center it.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: We have to live it.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: He says, impress them on your children.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: Impress them on your children.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: But notice before he says, impress them on your children, impress them on the young people in our church, in our world, before he says that, he says, What?
17:45
SPEAKER_00: With all your heart, soul, mind, right?
17:48
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying that you have to love God with the totality of who you are.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: And before you expect them to learn it, you have to live it.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: Before the kids in your life will learn your faith, you have to live your faith.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: And in the age of AI, I spent a lot of time student camps with young people, they are hungry for one thing above all other things: authenticity.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: Because slowly but surely we're drifting into a world where authenticity is harder and harder to find.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I don't think that that's real.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: I think it's fake, created by a robot somewhere.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: Right?
18:38
SPEAKER_00: And what our young people in the world want more than anything right now is just they want real.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: They want authenticity because fewer and fewer things feel real.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: Parents in the room.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: The greatest gift that you can give your kids is not a perfect faith, but an authentic faith.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: To be honest about what you're afraid of.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: To be honest about the doubt, the doubts that you have.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: College students in the room, PhD students in the room, the greatest gift that you can give the people around you is not a perfect faith.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: It's an authentic one.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: In authentic faith.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: That feels fear.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: In authentic faith, it isn't perfect.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: In authentic faith, it doesn't have all the answers.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: Because even this summer, speaking at camps, I met so many students who say, Yeah, my mom and dad took us to church almost every Sunday.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: And then we would drive home, and on the drive home, I would walk, watch them transform back into the parents I knew them to be.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: A real faith, a lived in faith, an authentic faith.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: One of the hardest things that I've had to do in the last two years was apologize to my seven-year-old.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: Because there is a little voice in the back of my head saying that, Cameron, if you do this, he's gonna know that you messed up, he's gonna know that you did it wrong, and like this is not how you're supposed to model your faith for him.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: And it's like I get into the text and it's like this is exactly the type of faith that we're supposed to model.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: A faith that goes, I messed up, I didn't do this right because I'm not perfect.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: I don't want my son to grow up believing that he has to have a perfect faith.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: I want my son growing up knowing that when he doesn't get it right, there is space and grace for that.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: And so I look him in the eyes and I say, Bubba, I'm I'm I'm so sorry I did not respond well.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: Would you forgive me?
21:13
SPEAKER_00: Because the greatest gift that you can give your kids or the kids in our family is not a perfect faith, but an authentic one.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Because we know this deep down.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: You cannot pass along a faith that you only perform.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: If if if if if church, if small group, if internship, if prayer, if worship, if it's all just performative, it won't go anywhere.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: We have to live it.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: And he says, talk about them when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, when you get up.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, This is discipleship.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: Discipleship is not that we just drop off the young kids, drop off our kids, and hope that the church fixes them.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: Good luck, Kelly.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: He says, when you wake up, when you walk.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: When you lie down, he says that real discipleship is at the breakfast table.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: Real discipleship is on the car ride home.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Real discipleship is when you show up to class.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: Real discipleship is during study breaks.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: That's real discipleship.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: It's partnering with the church.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: Not going, hope the church figures my friend out.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: I brought him today, they're really messed up.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: Good luck, Cameron.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: He said, No, no, no, no.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: Moses is saying that this true discipleship is everywhere all the time.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: It's not just on Sunday mornings.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: And if you just have a Sunday morning faith, it will not last.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: I talk about this all the time.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: Like, can you imagine?
22:43
SPEAKER_00: If I went to my wife and I said, hey babe, I really want to invest in our relationship.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give you one hour on the weekend for us to grow deeper.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: She would slap me in the face so fast it wouldn't even be funny.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: This was never meant to be enough, which is why at the beginning of this service we stood to receive the word of God so that we may go do the word of God and live the word of God.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: Because the world doesn't need a perfect faith.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: It needs to see modeled in authentic faith.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: We have to center Jesus in our lives and then we have to live this.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever thought about this?
23:28
SPEAKER_00: That what determines your success, if you're trying to get in shape, if you're trying to work out, you're like, I'm gonna be healthier, right?
23:33
SPEAKER_00: All of us January 1, before January 13th.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm gonna do this.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: You come to find out that what determines your success in the gym is not actually the work that you do in the gym.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: It's what you do and don't do out of the gym that determines the success of the work in the gym.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: Right?
23:55
SPEAKER_00: The success of your faith is not determined in the one hour you go to church on Sunday.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: It's determined in the 167 hours you spend outside of church.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: I have convinced myself so many Januaries that I can get shredded and I can get a six-pack while keeping my Taco Bell diet.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: Babe, I can get a six-pack and still eat my chalupas on the side.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: And now I have chalupas on the side.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: It's not about the work that I do in the gym, though that is important.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: It's the choices and the decisions that I make outside of the gym.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: Why?
24:33
SPEAKER_00: Because I have to live that out.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: And the same is true with our faith.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough to just come to church and expect one hour a week to sustain our spiritual walk with God.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: I have to live this out.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: I have to center Jesus, and then I have to live out my faith.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: And the third and final thing is this we have to center it, we have to live it, and we have to rehearse it.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Look what he says in verse 10.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: Then when you eat and are satisfied, he says, Be careful.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: Those are all good things, right?
25:29
SPEAKER_00: We would all sign up for that.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: Houses we didn't build, vineyards we didn't plant, wells we didn't dig.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: It's like, yeah, sign me up for that.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: I basically get the fruit of everybody else's labor.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, You're about to enter into that land, and Moses is preparing the nation of Israel to step into the promised land, even though Moses can't go with them.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the greatest gift that you can give somebody else in your life is to prepare them for a place that you won't be able to go with them.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, You're about to walk into not catastrophe.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, You're about to enter into prosperity.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, Be careful.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: You go, Well, wait a minute, Cameron.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: Isn't this the prosperity gospel?
26:11
SPEAKER_00: Like God loves us so much that he wants me to be blessed and he wants you to be blessed, and he wants you to have a car, and he wants you to have a house.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, No, Moses says, You're about to enter into the promised land, be careful.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: My wife is uh by blood Chilean, Chilean, and they moved from Chile to Australia, and so they're part Chilean, part Australian, but by blood, she's fully Chilean, but they've spent years in Australia, so culturally they're very confused, as I would say it.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: And culturally, I'm as American as it gets.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: And so when we got together, it was like a whole crazy mess.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: But I remember early on in our relationship, we'd have family come from Australia, but they wouldn't come in like ones and twos, they would come in like fives and tens.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: And so when family to come visit, there's like 50 people there.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: And they all sing, they're all musically gifted, and I'm not, so I just sit there and kind of nod and smile.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but they came over one night and and and they just start singing.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: And it's like 10 p.m.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: And I'm tired because that's like three hours past my bedtime.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: And so my my future father-in-law had a little cot in the garage, which is where he did some of his work, and so I was like, I'm just gonna slip out.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: They're all singing and harmonizing and melodizing.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna slip out and go take a nap in the garage, and then when I get up, they'll all be gone.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: So I go, I fall asleep on this cot.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: I wake up at 12:30 in the morning, and I walk out there, and I call my mom, and I'm like, mom, they're still singing.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: And they're just sitting around the living room and they're just singing songs about God knows what.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: And then they start telling stories.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: And they all leave, and I told my wife the next day, I'm like, babe, I've heard that story nine times, which means I know that you've heard it at least 50.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, why do we keep telling the same stories?
28:02
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what your family is like.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: My family, I don't know if it's because of our family history.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: We don't really talk about the past a whole lot.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: We like to talk about the present and the future.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: Her family gets together and it's like, let's tell this story, and not just the new story, let's tell the same story.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: And Charmaine said, but babe, this is who we are, and this is where we've been, and this is what we've done.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: And I realize the longer that I'm married to this woman, that this anchors the family.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: And there is this oral tradition all throughout human history where families would gather together, where the church would gather together, and there's this beautiful oral history of the people.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: This is who we are and where we've been and what we've done, and this is your grandfather and your great-great-grandmother, and this is what they did, and this is how they passed along their faith and their everything to you, and it anchored people.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: And we have lost this oral history in the West in 2026.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: And Moses is saying, don't lose that with God, but we're so quick to forget.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: And what you see in Deuteronomy chapter 6 is that we fight our forgetfulness by rehearsing his faithfulness.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: We rehearse what God has done in our lives, and we say, That is my God, and that is what he has done, and that is what he has brought me through.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: And that is what gives me faith to walk into the next season.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: He's the God that walked with you through divorce, he's the God that walked you with you through abandonment, he's the God that walked with you through depression and anxiety.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: And Moses is saying, Tell those stories, and don't stop telling those stories.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: Because you need to be reminded, and the church needs to be reminded, and your kids need to be reminded.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: Rehearse the faithfulness of your God.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: And this is what Moses is doing.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, You're about to enter into the promised land.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Houses you didn't build, wells you didn't dig, vineyards you didn't plant.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: But in verse 12, he says, Be careful.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: Why?
30:02
SPEAKER_00: Be careful that you do not forget the Lord who brought you out of Egypt and out of the land of slavery.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: Moses is doing it right here.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: He says, Don't forget what God has done for you.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: He brought you out of Egypt and out of the land of slavery.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: He's fighting the people's forgetfulness by rehearsing God's faithfulness.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: And it's clear throughout scripture that it's not just the bad times in life that we're in most danger.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: Moses is actually laying out a case that maybe the most dangerous thing for your faith and relationship with God is not actually the bad times, but the good times.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: I never have to remind my kids to come to me when they get hurt.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I wish they would do it a little bit less.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you're fine, rub some dirt on it, go keep playing.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: I never have to remind them.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: They will always come to me when they're hurt.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: I will always run back to God when my life gets hard.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: But do I remember him when my life is good?
31:06
SPEAKER_00: Do I have the same dependence and reliance on him when I have forgotten how much I need him?
31:12
SPEAKER_00: We got Carter some rollerblades last year.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: All kids go through this growth curve where in the very beginning he's moving like this on the rollerblades.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: And now he's doing 360s and he's going way faster than he should.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: And they get wildly overconfident.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: It's where you actually have to discourage the kids so they don't kill themselves.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: And we're at this social gathering, and this other young kid was like, oh man, those skates are so cool.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: And my son goes, Yeah, I don't crash anymore.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: As a famous last words.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: 30 seconds later, he has barrel rolled underneath the barbecue because he fell.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: Right?
31:50
SPEAKER_00: And what we have had to teach him is like, Carter, actually, the most dangerous thing for you is getting overconfident.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: Because you forget your need for safety.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: And Moses is saying, you're about to enter into the promised land and life is going to go well.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: Be careful.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Or you'll forget how much you still need God.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: How do we fight that?
32:13
SPEAKER_00: By rehearsing his faithfulness, by remembering the things that he has done in our lives.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: Because so quickly we forget.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: I'll invite the band to come forward.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: Last year, Charmaine was out of town.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: And this only happens when Charmaine is out of town.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: I was awoken at two in the morning by one of my children.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: I will not say which one.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Dad, I pooped.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, Camera, you have trained for this.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: And so I got up and I was expecting to, you know, either change some pants or you know be a quick cleanup.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay, well, just fix it and go back to bed.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I I tried to fix it, I can't.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: I said, okay, so I get out of bed and I'm groggy.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: It's two in the morning.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: I walk into the bathroom.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: And I never realized that when they said I pooped, that was a dramatic understatement.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: They had indeed pooped.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: Not just in their pants, not just in the toilet, not just around the toilet, not just on the floor of the toilet, but on the walls of the toilet, on the walls behind the toilet.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: I walked into our bathroom and it had indeed been repainted.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: And at two in the morning, when my wife is out of town sleeping soundly in a hotel room somewhere.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: I'll be honest with you.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: I was not very kind.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you get on the take these paper towels and start wiping.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm just like, I'm I'm in a mood, and I'm just trying to wipe up this poop, and the more that you wipe it, the more it just spreads and it's getting into the grout.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, God, I don't want to do this.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: Why, God, have you forsaken me?
34:14
SPEAKER_00: And then this little thought popped into my head.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: And I don't get these super spiritual revelations often because I'm a pastor.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: It's just this little seat of a thought as I'm cleaning up the poop on the floor of the bathroom at two in the morning.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: It's just this little thought.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: Camera, you spent years praying to have this kid.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: What a beautiful thing it is to have a life worth cleaning up.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the biggest mess in your life is proof of the blessing of God in your life.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: And I thought I would not for one second wish away this mess because I have prayed for this child.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: And God has blessed me with this child.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: And it's in the good times and the bad times that I need to be reminded of my desperate need for God.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: So in that moment at two in the morning, on my hands and knees, doing something that I wish I didn't have to do, I started rehearsing the faithfulness of God in my life.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: That God, you have given me this kid.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: And if you know my story, you know that I was a kid who was not wanted by my father.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: And now I get the blessing of being woken up at 2 a.m.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: to clean up poop from the bathroom floor by a kid who wants nothing but to love me.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the mess in your life is proof of the blessing of God in your life.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: And Moses is saying that you are about to enter into a good season.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Do not forget the Lord.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: Far more difficult when life is good.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: Do not forget that you always have and you always will need Him.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: Would you take this faith?
36:21
SPEAKER_00: Would you take this word?
36:23
SPEAKER_00: Would you take Yahweh?
36:27
SPEAKER_00: The one and only God.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: Would you center it in your life?
36:32
SPEAKER_00: Would you give it the most time, the most value, the most effort, so that it has the greatest gravitational pull on everything in your life?
36:41
SPEAKER_00: But would you not just center it?
36:42
SPEAKER_00: Would you live it?
36:45
SPEAKER_00: Not a perfect faith, a real faith, an authentic faith.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: And when life is hard and when it is good, would you rehearse the goodness and faithfulness of your God?