If you didn't get a handout, they are spread around the room and I would encourage you to get that. It will help you as we move pretty quickly through the material. The leadership in the family is a big topic and it required a lot of discipline on my part to keep it narrowed down.

And Deuteronomy 6 is a very familiar passage. If you have your Bible, turn to it, it's a familiar passage and it's a familial passage. Family is all over it. In that one chapter, there's nine references to sons or children, four references to the father, one to grandchildren and by reference to the grandparents, there's five references to the house or the home.

Verse two addresses you and your son and your grandson and it speaks directly to what should be happening inside your home, in the privacy of your home, where you think it may not matter. So for all of that, you might think tonight is about parenting or it's going to be about marriage and it really isn't about either.

It's not directly about parenting, although there's a lot of that in Deuteronomy 6. It's not about marriage, although there's a lot of application to marriage in Deuteronomy 6. This session is about your leadership. Deuteronomy 6 describes the character and the role of the leader of the home in a consolidated way unlike really any other passage that I found.

As you well know by now, spiritual leadership is marked by knowing, living and teaching the Word of God and living an exemplary life. Tonight, the focus is on what you say and how you live as you lead in your home. If you're a husband, a father, a grandfather or you aspire to any of those, tonight is for you.

There will be undeniable and obvious application to marriage and to parenting and it actually may raise a lot of questions about that. And I want to encourage you, I'm available afterwards as are your small group leaders to answer those questions and the Grace Church website has an abundance of content on all of that.

My discipline tonight is to talk to you men about you and about your leadership, about how you conduct yourself in your home and I'm going to start tonight with two stories. The first story is set in the late 1920s, Al Capone virtually owned and terrorized Chicago. He was a vicious gangster and a mob boss.

He was a cold-blooded killer. His reign of terror was assisted by corrupt politicians, a public that loved him because he paid them to love him. They were charmed and he had a partner and a friend named Eddie. He was a lawyer, nicknamed Easy Eddie and Eddie was his lawyer for a very good reason.

He was very good and he was utterly corrupt. In fact, Easy Eddie's skill at legal maneuvering corruption and buying off juries was so pronounced that he kept Al Capone, Scarface, out of jail for anything other than what they finally got him for which was tax evasion. To show his appreciation, Capone paid Eddie very well and as a result, Eddie and his family lived in a mansion that was fenced in, occupied an entire block of downtown Chicago.

With all the luxury and safety and power that that wealth could bring him, Easy Eddie had a son that he loved dearly and despite his own deep involvement with organized crime, Eddie tried to isolate his son and his family from the life that he was living and he tried to teach his son right from wrong.

At some point, Eddie began to realize that there were two things he couldn't possibly give his son. He couldn't give him a good name or a good example. It's said that because of this, Eddie initiated contact with law enforcement and told the truth about his own crimes and the crimes of Al Capone.

His cooperation was his attempt to clean his tarnished image, his tarnished name and offer his son some evidence of repentance, making right all the things that he had done wrong. He would have to testify against Al Capone and the mob and he knew it would cost a lot. Al Capone was indeed convicted.

He went to prison and several years later and one week before Al Capone was released from prison, Easy Eddie was assassinated in broad daylight on a street in downtown Chicago. He paid the price most expected he would pay. Story number two. World War II produced a number of heroes obviously and you probably know many of them.

One such man was a 28-year-old Lieutenant Commander Butch O'Hare. He was a fighter pilot assigned to the aircraft carrier Lexington in the South Pacific. One day his entire squadron was sent on a mission. The ship was emptied of all airplanes to go on this mission and after O'Hare was airborne and in formation, he realized that his fuel tanks had not been topped off and consequently he didn't have enough fuel to accomplish the mission and get back to the ship.

The flight commander ordered him to drop out of the formation and return to the ship. As he was returning to the Lexington, he saw a squadron of nine Japanese bombers heading for the aircraft carrier group. Laying aside all thoughts of his personal safety and the commander's orders to return directly to the ship, he dove into that formation of Japanese bombers and he charged in with his .50 caliber wing mounted guns attacking one enemy plane and then another until he finally ran out of ammunition.

With no more ammunition, he began to dive at the other planes using his plane as a weapon trying to clip a wing or clip a tail to damage as many enemy planes as possible and render them unfit to fly. Finally that Japanese squadron broke off the attack and turned towards home.

But O'Hare returned to the Lexington, managed to land the plane, his damaged fighter. He related a few of the events surrounding the encounter, but he humbly left out most of the story. However, the film from the gun camera mounted on his airplane told the tale. He had in fact destroyed five enemy aircraft and he was credited with saving thousands of lives and the USS Lexington.

This took place on February 20, 1942 and for that action, Butch became the U.S. Navy's first ace of World War II and the first naval aviator to win the Congressional Medal of Honor. A year later at 29 years of age, he led the first ever nighttime launch of fighter planes for an attack in World War II.

He never returned. He was shot down and killed that night. And in Butch O'Hare's honor in 1949, Chicago's Orchard Depot Airport was renamed to this day, you know it as, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Years ago I was passing through O'Hare on a business trip and I saw a small display behind the security checkpoint at gate one.

A long layover and that little plaque on the wall and some curiosity led me down the trail of the story it told and the rest of the story it did not tell. It didn't tell the whole story. What do these two stories have to do with each other? Most people don't know and I certainly did not know that one of the busiest airports in the world is in Chicago and it's named after Butch O'Hare, the son of Easy Eddie.

Al Capone's best friend, his partner in crime, and his attorney, Butch O'Hare was Easy Eddie's son. You all know the influence of a father or the lack of influence and relationship with a father. You all have a father. Whether they're alive or not, you knew you have a father and my assumption is tonight that you are all fathers or you aspire to be a father.

I want to consider the opportunity you have as a father and as the leader of your home. Your influence there is profound. It is unmatched by any other influence you will ever have on this earth. Your position as leader in the home is a God-given gift and all too often it's a blown opportunity.

I wonder if any of you think about how your leadership in your home is viewed by those whom you lead, your wife, your children, your grandchildren, or how your children and grandchildren will describe your leadership in the future, maybe even after you're gone. For example, when your children start to have those conversations about you, about your leadership in the home, and they will, you will not be there to hear it or to fix the story or to make it sound better, to make it sound more friendly to you.

It will be well past your ability to change the story, whatever it is, it is, for better or worse. Will that story be about a godly pattern or at least a trajectory that reflects the work of Christ in you? I mention trajectory because some of you have a terrible past to overcome.

Some of you might have a terrible current pattern to change and overcome. Hopefully that change isn't as dramatic as E.Z. Eddie's challenges. Philippians 3.13 says this, and you should be encouraged by this, "Brothers, I do not consider myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." The grace and mercy in those verses should absolutely overwhelm you.

It should encourage you to examine yourself tonight and change course if needed. E.Z. Eddie didn't live long enough to see the effect of the changes he made in his life and the change of the trajectory in his life and how that affected his son. You might get to see that.

That matters. The leadership of the man, the male, in the home was established in Genesis 2 and sadly illustrated through the failure and sin of Adam in Genesis 3. The man is the leader at home regardless of whether you want to lead or you don't. It's not optional. You might be familiar with the Proverbs 31 woman.

Have you heard of the Proverbs 31 woman? It's a passage that famously describes the ideal woman. It's the passage that says, "An excellent wife who can find for her worth is above all pearls," and it goes on from there. Proverbs 31 is not a checklist of criticisms and shortcomings.

It is the aspiration of a woman and a reminder to men that we should be encouraging our wife and appreciating our wife and delineating those things that we should appreciate and encourage in our wife and our daughters. Taking a similar approach to Deuteronomy 6 tonight, this is not a session to enumerate all of your failures and your weaknesses.

This is the ideal. Nobody has this wired perfectly. Man, you need to be encouraged by what you can be encouraged by tonight and we need to be reminded, encouraged, and even warned in the areas that need work for what we are going to look at tonight is normal. It's expected.

It's what a leader in the home should look like. Deuteronomy is a series of sermons and statements made by Moses at the age of 120. It's understood that it was probably a couple of weeks before he went to heaven. The focus and application tonight is the character of the man described in Deuteronomy 6 that leads the family from the inspired perspective of an old man at the end of his days on this earth.

So let's jump in to Deuteronomy 6. There's some things we're going to look at that I think flow right out of the passage. Seven marks of a Deuteronomy 6 man or a man who is a leader in his home. The first one is that he is a learner. Deuteronomy 6 starts verse 1.

Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments. Those three phrases are used elsewhere. For example, Psalm 19, 7 to 10 to describe the Bible, the word of God. The commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you. And we stop there.

When you see that there's a teacher, there's always a what? A learner. And the Deuteronomy 6 man is a learner. The first thing the preacher does is aim at you. You must be committed to the lifelong pursuit of learning God's Word. This is contrary to the popular view of manhood that says you already have all the answers at some point.

You don't. That might be news to some of you. Biblical manhood is a lifelong pursuit of learning God's Word and His wisdom and I'm comfortable saying that to you regardless of your age because the Bible says that. In Proverbs chapter 1 verse 5, a wise man will hear an increase in learning until he gets married.

Is that what it says? Or a wise man will hear an increase in learning until his children are finally out of the house. There is no end to this. None of that's there. A wise man will hear an increase in learning and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel.

No age limit. No expiration date. The leader of the home is a learner. Goes on in verse 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and destruction. So a wise man hears an increases in learning in verse 5 and verse 7 the contrast is with the fool who despises wisdom and instruction.

Don't be the fool. Learn. Learn God's Word. It's good for the family to see the humility of the leader of the family learning the benefits of learning, the submission to the imperative that you must keep learning and it's also good for the family to see the results of that learning.

Sanctification, obedience and that's the second mark of a Deuteronomy 6 man. He is obedient. Keep reading here. This is the commandment, the statutes, the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it.

Do them. Obey. Verse 2 goes on to say so that you, your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments which I commanded you all the days of your life. Verse 17 in Deuteronomy 6, and I'm...excuse me, I am jumping around a lot tonight in Deuteronomy 6, but verse 17, you should diligently keep the commandments of the Lord and His testimonies and His statutes which He has commanded you, those same three words.

Verse 18, "You shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, obey." Verse 24, "So the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, obey." Verse 25, "It will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all His commandments, obey." Do you see it?

Over and over and over, the Deuteronomy 6 man is a learner so that he can obey. It's not just a gathering of head knowledge, your obedience to the Bible is before the Lord and as an example to your wife and your children and your grandchildren. The theme of obedience is repeated over and over and over in Deuteronomy.

There's a connection, thank you. There's a connection between knowing God's Word, obeying God's Word, and the blessings that come from God when you do that. The leader of the family knows it. He lives this. He leads his family under this simple yet profound connection. You learn, you obey, and the Lord blesses you.

You want your family to learn to obey and to be blessed by God, and you must lead by example. That's leadership. That's spiritual leadership. The influence of your leadership is drawn from the example of your own obedience. Without that, what you say to your family, particularly your children, when you're directing their behavior to the extent it conflicts with how you live, it becomes optional, confusing, and it presents a false choice.

That false choice is, "Should I follow my father's words or how he lives his life?" The leader of the family is obedient and his stated and lived motivation in life is to be obedient, and he understands that hypocrisy is deadly to effective leadership in the home. Which leads us to our third point, that obedience is motivated by the fear of God.

The Deuteronomy 6 man fears God. Why do you learn? So that you obey. Why do you obey? Because you fear God. It says that right there in verse 2, "So that you and your son, excuse me, that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God." Verse 13, "You shall fear only the Lord your God." Verse 24, "So the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes to fear the Lord our God." The fear of God always leads to obedience and obedience always leads to the fear of God.

There's a repeated correlation in Scripture and here in Deuteronomy between the fear of God, obedience, wisdom, and blessing. Nowhere is the connection between the fear of God and the blessings from God more immediately evident than in the confines of your home and the family. Deuteronomy establishes it, Proverbs is full of it, Ecclesiastes talks about it, it'll sound familiar here in a minute, and there's one Psalm that highlights it so clearly and that's Psalm 128, verses 1 through 4.

Let me look first at verses 2 and 3 and see if this isn't how you want your family described. Verses 2 and 3, "When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands, you will be happy and it will be well with you." Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Sounds like Ecclesiastes.

This is talking about the provision of the Lord through the provision of your hard work. The beneficiary of your hard work is your home. The picture here you'll see is as the family sits around the table and shares a meal, there is happiness and contentment from the provision of the Lord.

There's happiness and then it goes on to talk about who's around that table. Verse 3, "Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house," and this speaks to the bearing of children and her role in raising those children. And then it speaks of the children, "Your children like olive plants around the table," speaking of thriving and successful children who will themselves someday bear fruit.

You see the picture? That's the picture. The parentheses around that picture is what I want you to see. How do you get there? How can I have that? It's what we think. Verse 1, "How blessed or happy is everyone who," what? "Fears the Lord, who walks in His ways," fear of God, obedience.

Fear of God, obedience. And then that great description of the home and then verse 4, the bookend on the other side, "Behold, for thus shall the man be blessed," who, what? Fears the Lord. The leader of the home is a learner, he's obedient and he fears the Lord and the fear of God in this context is really synonymous with the word love, the love of God.

Verse 5, Deuteronomy 6 verse 5, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might." The word heart speaks of the inner part, the midst. Soul speaks of the seat of your appetites, the seat of your emotions, your passions, the will.

With all your might speaks of loving to abundance, with force, exceedingly, and I love this, with muchness. Love God to abundance, with force, with muchness. Let the love of God inform your conscience, govern your appetites, control your emotions and passions and drive you to know Him more so that you can obey Him better for the benefit of your family and for the glory of God.

That's leadership in the home. The leader in the home is driven to obedience out of love for God, not because he's afraid of God and he's motivated to show his children and grandchildren the way by his example. Number 4, the Deuteronomy 6 man is steadfast. Back in verse 2 of Deuteronomy 6, "So that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes, his commandments, which I command you." And here's the phrase, "All the days of your life and that your days may be prolonged." All the days of your life consumed with the task, purposeful, lifelong.

The leader of the home understands and embraces the long game. When it says you, your son, and your grandson, that is the full spectrum of your life and my life. It's all included. This is the range of a man's existence, all the days of his life. The Bible talks a lot about a man who is constant, who is steadfast, unwavering, holding fast.

You're familiar with 1 Corinthians 15, 58, "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord." This is completely consistent and expands the concept that Moses references when he says all the days of your life.

The Deuteronomy 6 man believes this is true and his convictions are constant, never changing, deeply held, constantly fed and nurtured by the learning of the Word of God throughout his life. The lesson for your home is, man, don't be careless. Don't get careless. Don't start thinking that you've arrived and that the battle is over.

It isn't. We're called to be steadfast from beginning to end. Verse 3 of Deuteronomy 6 says, "Oh, Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it." The admonition to you and I is in our leadership at home, we need to be very steadfast and in that, be very careful.

Ephesians 5, 15, "Therefore, be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time because the days are evil." Watch how you walk in your home. All the way to the finish line. Your family is watching. What you say, how you live, your character, everything is being recorded in those little brains or I should say in the brains of those little people we call children and grandchildren.

Their brains are probably better than ours. You know, I reflected in thinking about all of this, I don't remember much of anything my father taught me when I was young. I do remember some of what he taught me in my teen years and in my 20s. What I remember vividly in so much detail is my father in his 70s and his 80s and particularly in the last months as he was dying.

Go all the way to the finish line, men. May your leadership and your family legacy be steadfast, immovable as you abound in the work of the Lord as the leader of your home all the way to the end. Number five, the Deuteronomy 6 man guards his heart. Verse five of Deuteronomy 6 says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might.

These words which I'm commanding you today shall be on your heart." And talking to men about their heart might sound very unmanly. This is exactly the opposite. In Deuteronomy, the family man knows the importance of his heart and guarding his heart, of what he puts in his heart. That little phrase "shall be on your heart" is loaded with meaning and practical implication which time limits us to explore.

But the Bible correlates what is on your heart with the quality of your life, many, many times. And what I've put on the screen is just a few, a quick overview of the benefits of the commandments, judgments and statutes of the Lord being on your heart. Psalm 37, 31, it implies that if you don't want your step to slip, the law of God needs to be on your heart.

Psalm 40, if you want to do God's will, then your law should be on your heart, on your heart. Psalm 119, how many of us don't want to sin, we want to obey? Well, it says in verse 11 that that happens when his word is treasured in our hearts.

Jeremiah 31, "I will put my law within them and on their heart I will write it." And look what happens, "And I will be their God and they shall be my people." A Deuteronomy 6 man blocks out all other affections and preoccupations of the heart other than love for Christ, love for his word and love for that which the Lord loves, which happens to be your family, your wife, your children, your grandchildren.

And that love and that preservation and guarding of your heart informs what you say. And that takes us to our next point, which is that the Deuteronomy 6 man is a teacher. He's a teacher. The leader of a home is a teacher. Verse 7 of Deuteronomy 6, "You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." There's a whole bunch of parenting implication here. But remember, I'm talking about you, the character of the man who leads the home.

Verse 1 starts with, "I'm going to teach you," and then right here in verse 7, "You teach them." Now, does that pattern sound familiar? Second Timothy 2.2, "The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." Moses is making the point that I'm going to teach you.

It's your job to raise faithful children and to teach them so that they will teach others also. A man doesn't get to say, "I'm not a teacher." Credible implications for you and I, and it's incredible implications if you're raising sons. You're not just raising a son, you're raising a man.

You're raising a man who will lead a home someday that needs to be equipped and know how to teach. And Moses is so helpful in this passage because he addresses two questions that he knows, and he was right, that your family is going to ask you. Two questions that you want your family to ask you.

Two profound questions. What does the Bible mean, and why should I obey God? Well, down in verse 20, Moses literally scripts out the answers to these two questions. It's incredible, isn't it? Verse 20, "When your son asks you in time to come, saying, 'What do the provisions and the statutes and the judgments,' you know by now the provisions, the statutes and the judgments is referencing," what?

The Word of God. So when your son asks you, "What does the Bible mean," which the Lord our God commanded you, verse 21, "Then you shall say to your son," and before we go through that, I want to kind of pull over and think a minute about that phrase, "When your son asks you." This is talking about children.

Man, when your children ask you a question, you need to know that that's why you're there. That's what you want. Questions are a window into the soul and the character of your children, and in fact, you might want to wait sometimes for a question. Too often we force feed our opinions and perspectives and even truth to an unreceptive little human being, a good and effective teacher, a leader of his home sometimes waits for the question.

There is almost a promise here, they will ask you this question. If you're learning, you're obeying, you're fearing God, all of this is going on in front of them, they will ask you and you need to be prepared with the answers. And you want your answers to be heard and followed, don't you?

It's your responsibility to ensure that when you answer these questions, what you say is believable, it's authoritative, and it's compelling. That's spiritual leadership. And if you're known as a learner yourself, as an obedient man, as a man who fears the Lord, you're steadfast in your biblical conviction, it makes your words unavoidable.

And by the way, they still may be rejected ultimately, but that is a result you're not accountable for. You are accountable for making sure that you preserve the viability and reliability of what you say through sound words and a life of integrity. Too many men think that by virtue of rank or title of husband or father, head of my home, that your family will listen, they'll hear it, and they will act.

This is not the case. And all God's men probably said what? Amen. It doesn't always work out this way. If it always worked out that way, leadership in the family would be easy. By God's design, you must compel the efficacy of truth by the vindication of your own consistent behavior.

That ultimately is what might defeat the competing influences in your children's lives, which may be friends, it may be social media, it may be teachers, professors, and mostly their own sinful hearts. We must teach. We must be ready for the questions. We must be ready at minimum to these two questions.

So when your children ask, and you must and should pray that they do, you want to know how to pray for your children? Pray that they ask these questions. Pray that you're prepared to answer the questions. So what does the Bible mean? Verse 21, here it is. And you shall say to your son, "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

Moreover, the Lord provided great and terrible signs and wonders before our eyes against Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his household. He brought us out of there in order to bring us in, to give us the land which he had sworn to our fathers." What in the world does that have to do with the question, what does the Bible mean?

This is incredibly profound. There's so much to say here, very limited time. Let me give you a couple of general principles, and there's four, or there's three, but don't worry about it. Don't number them. I'm just gonna rip through this. What he scripts out is biblical history. Let me boil it down.

Tell your children who God is and what he's done. That is what the Bible is there for. That is the message of the Bible. Why do we have a Bible? To know God. What does it mean? All understanding of the Bible flows through an understanding of the character of God himself.

Last year, Brad went through, in Men of the Word, the attributes of God. If you're a young dad, I would commend that series to you to listen to it over and over and over. And if your children are old enough, get them to listen to it with you. That wasn't random.

It wasn't coincidental. Brad was informing your leadership, and here it is in Deuteronomy. When you're asked, what does the Bible mean, it is all run through the filter of who God is and what he's done. The answer to this most basic question is found in the character and acts of a mighty God.

The Bible tells us who he is. And then the question, why should I obey? I won't have asked for a show of hands, but I'm going to bet most of you have had children who have asked you that question. Why should I obey? And by the way, your goal as a parent is not to teach them to obey you.

I hope you understand that. The requirement that they obey you is to teach them the concept and the relationship so that when they leave your home, they understand how to obey who, God. Why should I obey? And Moses here lays out four reasons starting in verse 24. And again, I'm going to go through this pretty quick.

Verse 24, first answer is because God said to. It's that simple. Verse 24, so the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes. Moses is answering the question when your children ask you, and anyone else by the way, why should I obey? Verse 24, the first reason is because God told us to.

The second is it's for our good. It's for your good. The Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes in verse 24, to fear the Lord our God for our good always. And then number three, for our survival. You want your children to survive? Teach them to obey God.

When they want to know why, that's why. And then number four is for the glory of God. This passage goes on verse 25 to say, it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all this commandment before the Lord our God, just as he commanded us.

Ephesians 2.10 says, we were created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he prepared beforehand that we would walk in them. When you obey God as a believer, you are doing what he ordained before you even knew what you were doing. And it glorifies God. That is what that is saying in Deuteronomy 6.

It will be righteousness for us. Christ's righteousness placed on us. And why do we obey? Because we want to glorify God. A family leader teaches with his words and his life, in all phases of life, and in all your teaching, you must address the character of God, the word of God, the commands of God, and the grace and the blessings of God.

And this surely leads to our last point, number seven, that the Deuteronomy 6 man worships God. And in Deuteronomy 6.10-15 describes the worship of the leader in the home. And the context is the home and the entire chapter culminates in really in these verses. Verse 13 is the center and the core of all of it.

Verse 13, "You shall fear only the Lord your God and you shall worship him and swear by his name." And the worship of the leader in the home is driven by four elements. And I tried to make it somewhat evident with a highlighter for you in the overhead. But there's four things that animate the worship of the leader in the home as he leads his family in worship, teaches his family to worship, and its humility, its remembering, its love, and it is exclusivity.

What does that mean? Well, it's right there in verse 10, the humility. Verse 10, "Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you great and splendid cities which you did not build and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees." You see the same picture as Psalm 128 there, "Vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant and you eat and you're satisfied." There is a humility in those statements that parallels 1 Corinthians 4, 7.

"For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?" You've been given everything. And the humility of that recognition drives worship. It goes on in verse 12, talking about remembering, "Remember, watch yourself," it says in verse 12, "that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery." Do you see the merging here of what you teach your children with the resulting worship?

Third, verse 13, "You shall fear only the Lord your God." This is the love for God. That's what animates, that's what drives our worship. Humility, remembering what the Lord has done and who He is, loving Him for all of that, and then fourth, exclusivity. Verse 14, "You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the people who surround you." If you're a parent of young children, I know this hits straight on target, or it should.

The gods around us are more prevalent and visible and available today than they've ever been. We want to lead our children in the worship and explain and make them understand by our example and our teaching that you shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the people who surround us, for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God.

Otherwise, the anger of the Lord your God will be kindled against you and He will wipe you off the face of the earth. It's a great way to end the night. Some of you might say, "Really, we're going to leave it with being wiped off the face of the earth?" Yeah, it's a great way to end because if you're a believer, we love that jealous and angry God, and by His work on the cross and our faith in Jesus Christ alone for His redemption, we have nothing to fear by that last phrase.

We worship God because of His justice, and we look forward to that justice. But if you do not know Christ and have not repented of your sins, you do have everything to fear. There's no need to leave tonight, though, afraid. Romans 10, 9 says that if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be what?

Saved. For with the heart a person believes, resulting in obedience or righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed." If you read verse 15 and you're afraid, I want you to seriously consider tonight you do not need to leave here afraid.

We want to talk to you. If you love the Lord, you've repented of your sins, we exult in all of verses 10 through 15, every word of it, we love that God. We worship that God. And men, you cannot possibly follow the example of the Deuteronomy 6 man in your own home unless you have the Holy Spirit, unless you have confessed with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believed in your heart that He's raised from the dead, and you're saved.

Let me close in prayer. Lord, we end on a serious note because Moses took us there. Lord, we are a needy people. We serve a great God. We're so grateful to you for who you are and what you've done. Lord, I pray that you enable the men in this room who know and love you to be learners, to be obedient, to love you above all else, to be steadfast in conviction, to guard their hearts, and as a result of all of that, to teach their children, to lead their families, and then to worship before our families, before you, and to raise up from our home worshipers.

Lord, thank you for Moses. Thank you for your word. Thank you for this passage. Lord, I pray that as we go to the group discussions now, that you would superintend that conversation. Lord, I do pray for those who are here tonight who may not have the confidence of not being afraid of you.

Lord, may they not go home until they resolve that and are reconciled to you. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.