Home is Where It All Begins

Sermon Summary:

This powerful message takes us deep into Deuteronomy 6, one of the most significant passages in all of Scripture—so important that Jesus himself quoted it when asked about the greatest commandment. We’re challenged to move beyond the picture-perfect facade we often present to the world and discover what it truly means to create a flourishing home. The passage reveals that flourishing doesn’t come from our own strength or perfect circumstances, but from a deep, transformative love and commitment to God’s Word. We’re called to love God with our whole heart (our decision-making center), our entire soul (everything that makes us who we are), and all our strength (every resource we possess). This isn’t about God demanding a slice of our lives—He wants the whole enchilada! The beauty of this message is that it doesn’t stop with personal transformation. When God’s Word is deeply embedded in our hearts, it naturally overflows into every relationship within our sphere of influence. Whether we’re parents, grandparents, coworkers, or friends, we’re invited to talk about Scripture naturally, get creative in keeping God’s truth front and center, and most importantly, to clothe ourselves with Jesus—the living Word. This is more than hanging Bible verses on our walls; it’s about letting Christ’s character so completely wrap around us that His love flows through us even when our own runs dry.

Watch The Service Here

Sermon Points:

Key Takeaways:

• We often present picture-perfect images of our homes while floundering behind the scenes, but God wants to give us genuinely flourishing homes
• A flourishing home requires deep love and commitment to the Word of God
• Biblical listening (shema) means hearing that leads to action and transformation, not just passive acknowledgment
• Loving God involves three dimensions: heart (our will and decisions), soul (our whole being and personality), and strength (our resources and abilities)
• Flourishing begins within the individual before it can impact others
• “Home” encompasses our entire sphere of influence—family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, and church community
• We must talk about Scripture naturally and regularly with those in our lives
• Discovery Bible Study offers a simple, effective method for discussing Scripture with others
• Getting creative with God’s Word means living it out visibly through service, worship, and prioritizing spiritual disciplines
• We must “clothe ourselves with Jesus”—not just wear verses but embody the living Word through His Spirit
• God provides the love and forgiveness we need when our own runs out

Watch other Sermons Here

Scripture References:

• Deuteronomy 6:1-12 (primary passage)
• Romans 5:8 (“While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”)
• John 1 (The Word became flesh)
• Romans 13:14 (“Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ”)

Stories:

• Personal family photo shoot story illustrating the gap between appearance and reality—showing the chaos behind getting one “perfect” family picture
• Bedtime liturgy with children teaching them about unconditional love, particularly the story of three-year-old Brooklyn asking “Do you love me when I’m bad?”
• The pastor’s childhood memory of his grandmother singing the “Sunday School” song that shaped his faith journey
• Corrie ten Boom’s post-WWII encounter with a former Ravensbrook concentration camp guard who asked for forgiveness—illustrating how Jesus provides the love and forgiveness we cannot generate ourselves when she prayed “Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness” and felt His love flood through her

Sermon Transcript:

Katie likes to show pictures of her triplets from time to time, so I thought I would show some photos of my kids too. Would that be okay? Now here’s a good one from our last family photo shoot. Pull that picture up now. Isn’t that nice? What a great picture, right? Don’t we look like the model of a happy, healthy, flourishing family?

These pictures. These are the kind of pictures that make the Christmas cards right. Do you know how much chaos we had to endure to get this one picture?

Let me just show you some of the other pictures of what was actually happening behind the scenes. I don’t know what’s happening, but our middle child’s on the ground a little too close for comfort. That’s our favorite. The little ones given up.

And there they are helping them. We don’t ever show those pictures, do we? These aren’t the pictures we frame and we hang on the wall. And yet we all know that life behind the camera isn’t always what it seems. You see, we want to look as if we have the perfect home. And not because we’re dishonest. Not because we’re delusional, but because we long for one.

We want it to be true of us. We want a home that is flourishing. But so often behind the scenes, we’re floundering. So how do we create a home that moves from floundering to flourishing?

Open your copy of God’s Word to Deuteronomy chapter six. Our text for the day. Deuteronomy chapter six, verses one through 12.

These are the commands, decrees, and laws. The Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children, and their children after them may fear the Lord your God, as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life.

Here Israel, and be careful to obey, so that it may go well with you, and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

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, was filled with all kinds of good things that you did not provide. Wells. You did not dig vineyards. You did not plant. And when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, which I’ll pray with me this morning.

Lord, we ask, as we examine your scriptures, your word, that it becomes the word in our lives. Speak to us afresh today. Teach us and guide us so that we leave here a little bit more like Jesus in your name that we pray. Amen.

Now, I’m sure that many of you are familiar with this passage. It’s a very, very important passage in the Bible. It’s one of the most significant passages in the Bible. Jesus quotes it when a group of Pharisees asks him what the greatest commandment in the law is. It is deeply influenced the theology and practice of both Judaism and Christianity.

Orthodox Jews take it literally, wearing small copies of the law on their hands and on their foreheads. There’s even a Christian youth and children organization called D6 that’s based on this passage for thousands of years. This passage has had a profound impact on so many, but what’s happening at the time that these words are delivered? Well, here’s what’s happening in Israel at that time.

The Hebrews are on the verge of entering the Promised Land. And when they get there, it’s going to be good. It’s going to be really good. They’re going to have things that they’ve never had in their whole lives. They’re going to have food, real food, fruits and vegetables and meat. No more of that manna stuff. They’re going to have land property to raise their family on.

They’re having flourishing cities to buy and sell and gather with others houses fully furnished houses after centuries and slavery and 40 years of no matting through the desert. God is giving them a flourishing home. And guess what? He wants to provide one for you to see what God wants to give you. There’s only one problem. Deuteronomy six points it out.

We’re forgetful people. We too easily forget when all of our needs and our wants are being met. We tend to stop saying, look how great God is and instead say, look how great I am. And when that kind of thing happens in your life, the moment that you take your eyes off of God and His ways, things start to go awry, don’t they?

And before you know it, you’re floundering again. Here’s what God wants to provide for you in your life. God doesn’t want you only to have a nice picture of a flourishing home. He wants to give you the real thing. And Deuteronomy six one through 12 tells us that a flourishing home, a flourishing home requires a deep love and commitment to the Word of God.

Now, where does it start? Well, I’ll give you a hint. It starts first within you.

These commandments that I give you today. Verse six. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. So you can’t give your kids. And you can’t give your spouse. You can’t give your friends, and you can’t give your coworkers something that you don’t have. And notice how this passage starts with two very, very key words.

It starts with listen. And it starts with love. Listen and love. Now, in ancient Hebrew, there is no word, no one specific word for obey. There’s no word for obey in Hebrew, the word shama. It means to hear or to listen. That’s the word that they would use for obey. Listening wasn’t just about hearing words. Listening means allowing these words to shape and transform you.

So, parents in the room. Grandparents. You know this too. You understand the difference between hearing and listening. Don’t you? You know the difference. I can tell my kids, go clean up your dirty room, and they’ll all nod their little heads and they’ll all putter off to their room. And ten minutes later, I come back in and the room looks exactly the same.

Maybe worse. And there are over there, I don’t know, eating pages out of a book or painting the dog with nail polish or something silly. They heard me, but they didn’t listen. Did they?

And the Bible listening always implies some kind of action. To hear God’s word is to do it as well. A flourishing individual listens to the Word of God so deeply that it impacts them and changes them, and they do something about it. But also this love. A flourishing person loves God. God doesn’t demand out of us just blind obedience.

No. Instead, obedience is a heartfelt response to a God who first loved us, a God who demonstrates his love for us in this. That while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. I love that scripture, don’t you? It’s one of my favorite scriptures. Maybe my most favorite. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It’s Romans five eight.

How are we supposed to respond to that kind of love? How do we even respond to that? Well, our passage says that the response to God’s love is obedience. Love the Lord. Your God with all your. And look at them heart, soul, and strength. Briefly, I just want to hit on each one of these and what they actually mean.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart. Now, in ancient times, the heart wasn’t really about emotions or feelings like when we say it today. Listen to your heart. What we what we mean by that today is do what feels right to you. That’s not what the word heart means in this culture. Rather, the heart was the center of your decision making.

The heart was your will. Loving God with your heart means aligning your choices with his. It is loving him with all that you think and feel and do. That’s what the heart means. Think of it this way. You can think of it like a pro athlete who signs with the team. The ink is dry. The contract has been signed, and whether they feel like playing on a rainy Thursday night or not.

They suit up and they go out and they play loving God with all your heart is like that. You’ve already committed. Each daily decision is simply about showing up for the team that you’ve chosen. So that’s the heart. But we’re not only asked to love God with our heart. We love him with all of our soul. And the word soul in Hebrew is best translated as simply person.

It means your whole being. It means your personality, your body, and your identity. It’s all of you. When Moses says, love the Lord your God with your soul. He’s not talking about some ghostly part of you that floats away when you die. That’s not what soul means. Soul is your character. It’s your physical life. It’s the breath in your lungs.

Soul is everything that makes you, you. So loving God with all your soul means loving him with the everyday stuff of life. Your laugh, your creativity. The way you talk with the neighbor. The way you handle stress at work or in your family. It’s bringing your hobbies, your habits, and even your quirks. Under his rule, soul means loving God with all that you are, loving God with all that you are.

And lastly, we are asked to love God with all of our strength. And this means more than physical strength. It includes all of your resources. Whatever you’re wealthy at, wherever you’re strong at your finances or your abilities, maybe it’s influence. Whatever strength you have. Leverage it to love God. Strength means loving God with all you have. So let’s add it all up.

Loving God involves all that I think and feel and do my heart. All that I am, my soul and all that I have. My strength. You think of it like concentric circles. It starts here in our heart. And then it extends outward to our soul. And then it extends even beyond this, our strength. It’s the overflow of what you put into the world.

You see what this means, don’t you? It means that God doesn’t want just a slice of your life. He wants the whole thing. Or like we’d say in South Texas, where I’m from. He wants the whole enchilada.

Flourishing at home begins with flourishing in your own walk with God. Listen, obey and love. But it doesn’t stay there. Oh, no, it doesn’t stay there. A flourishing individual also impacts those closest to them. These commands should be on your heart. And then it says, impress them on your children. Talk about them at all parts of your day as you’re coming and going, as you’re getting up and as you’re lying down.

So how do we impress the Word of God on our home? And let me be clear about this. This is more than just about a nuclear family. Mom and dad and their kids. The Hebrew word for home is actually best translated as household, which encompasses more than just a nuclear family. A household meant extended family. It meant your brothers and your sisters.

It meant your aunts and your uncles. It included your cousin. Yes, even that cousin. It included all of those people. It included your servants and anyone else that was under your care. So today you can apply Deuteronomy chapter six. You can apply this just as easily to your friends, to your coworkers, to your church members, or even your classmates.

Think of home this way. Think of home as anyone within your sphere of influence, whoever that is in your life, whoever that is. Who are you closest to? How do you create a flourishing environment that feels like home for those people? So first, here’s what we’re supposed to do. Deuteronomy six says we’re supposed to talk about it. We’re supposed to just talk about it.

I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced this before or not. I’ve talked to other Christians, and sometimes I think they experience it. They feel a little they feel a little shy, a little nervous about talking about their faith and talking about the Bible to other people in their life. For whatever reason. Maybe they feel insufficient to be able to really talk about this.

Maybe they don’t want to be seen at their work. Is that, you know, that Christian weirdo? My mom loves to talk about Scripture. She has a brother that doesn’t. And that that brother calls her a Bible thumper all the time. Have you ever heard that term Bible thumper? Somebody who just likes to talk about the Bible all the time.

I get it. We don’t want to be seen as just that, but Deuteronomy says we need to talk about it. We need to discuss the Word of God regularly in the life of those closest to us. Parents. Parents can do it really well with their kids at a young age. Bedtime prayers are so important and they’re so simple.

But when you do it, you’re impressing truth on your children or your grandchildren that will shape them for years to come. I have this little nightly liturgy that I like to do with my kids every now and again, and I didn’t invent this liturgy. I got it from a guy named Justin Whitney Early, who’s the author of a book called habits of the household.

But I do this liturgy with my kids where I’ve taken the bed and they’re laying there and I’ll say to them, Does daddy love you? And they have to say, yes, daddy loves me. And I’ll say, does daddy loves you when you’re good? They say, yes, daddy loves me when I’m good. And then I’ll say, does daddy love you when you’re bad?

Now here’s what’s interesting. When I first started doing that with them, their answer would be no, dad doesn’t love me when I’m bad. And I just said, no, dad loves you even when you’re bad. And then I would turn and I would say, Does God love you? Yes. God loves me. Does God love you when you’re good? Yes.

God loves me when I’m good. Does God love you when you’re bad? Yes. God loves me even when I’m bad. God loves me all the time. That’s our little liturgy that I say with them. And it is impressed itself on my children. I have a three year old daughter named Brooklyn, who you saw laying down on the bridge in one of those pictures.

But it’s been ingrained into Brooklyn so much that even when I do have to get on to Brooklyn, I’ll get on to her. Stop doing that. Put that down. And she cries for a little bit, and then she gets quiet and out of nowhere I’ll hear her say, do you love me? I’ll say, yes, baby, I love you.

Do you love me when I’m good? Yes, Brooklyn. I love you when you’re good. Do you love me when I’m bad? Yes, Brooklyn. I love you when you’re bad I love you all the time. The same is true about God. See how that sort of thing just ingrained in us deeply. And again, it doesn’t stop with your kids.

Your home isn’t limited to your street address that your coworkers and your friends, your neighbors. They’re part of your circle of influence. The shamal wasn’t just for parents. It was for all of Israel. Everybody who was there. The Word of God should be so ingrained in us that we just love to talk about it naturally with other people.

Here’s a simple way that you can do it. Whether you’re a parent or not. Here’s a simple way it’s through something called Discovery Bible Study or DBS. Our church is currently using this method in our small group ministry, and it’s designed in such a way that anybody can engage in it very easily, whether you have kids at home or not.

Whether you’re new to the Bible or not. You gather a few people and you read a passage of Scripture together, and you ask a few questions. Questions like, what does this passage tell us about God? Or what does this passage tell us about people? How will we live this out? And then you pray. It’s that easy. In fact, during engagement month in November at our church, in your Bible study classes, all of you will be doing discovery Bible study all together.

And the reason we want y’all to do that is because it’s simple. You can learn it really quick. It’s effective. It gives you a tool to be able to talk about scripture with others. And it’s built to multiply. You don’t have to have a seminary degree or the perfect family setup, just a willingness to open God’s Word and invite others in.

We discuss it. Second, get creative. What’s the Word of God in people’s lives? The Israelites would literally put Scripture on their doorframes and they would wear it on their body. And that was creative. That’s a creative way to remember God’s words. So we may not do that today, but I thought really hard about that. What could this look like?

It could mean Scripture art in your home, right? It could mean wearing a shirt with scripture on it. Sure. It could mean memorizing verses as a family, or it could mean filling your commute with worship music instead of something else. But most importantly, here’s what I think it means. It means showing up for those other people in your life.

It means living out the word so that they can see it. Serving others, worshiping together. It means making church and Sunday school a priority in your family’s life. I love Sunday school. You know I love said. I even like the phrase Sunday school. I know it’s fallen out of favor these days, but I like it still, and I can’t help but say it.

You know why I like Sunday school? It’s because my grandmother used to sing me this little ditty when I was a child, and it has influenced me ever since. She used to sing taking me to church every Sunday. Everybody ought to go to Sunday school, Sunday school, Sunday school. The mama and the papa and the babies to Sunday school.

I didn’t say it was a great song but it’s an effective song. I’ve remembered it ever since, and it’s shaped who I am today. But most of all, here’s what it means. Most of all, it means putting on Jesus.

Putting on Jesus. Paul says in Romans 1314, clothe yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ. Think about that little phrase clothe yourself. Think about it in light of Deuteronomy chapter six. I mean, the Hebrew people are literally covering their homes and covering their bodies with the words of God. That’s how desperate they were for this word to be real in their life.

That’s how desperate that they were to be close to God. And now we have something that they couldn’t have ever imagined in their entire lives. We don’t just have the written word of God. We have the living Word of God. We have Jesus Christ, Jesus himself. John one says. The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, the very word that they longed to carry on their wrists and bind to their foreheads has taken up residence with us through his spirit.

So when Paul says, clothe yourselves with Jesus, he’s saying, don’t just wear verses. Put on the one that these verses all point to. This isn’t about just wearing Bible verses on your shirt or decorating your home with more Hobby Lobby stuff. It’s about wrapping up your life with Jesus, his character, his patience, his forgiveness, his kindness. It’s about letting his presence shape your home through you, how you speak to your family, how you treat strangers, how you work, rest, and play.

The Israelites etched scripture on their doors so that they wouldn’t forget God’s words. And we have more. We can clothe ourselves with the Word himself.

After World War Two, Corrie Ten Boom met one of the prison guards who had abused her and her sister at Ravensbrück and that prisoner, when he was made in courts and boom, actually dared to ask for her forgiveness in court. And boom says that in that moment she felt no warmth, no love, no forgiveness for this man. And she even prayed, Jesus, I cannot forgive him.

Give me your forgiveness. Now she extended her hand. She says that she felt Jesus’s love flood through her. Corrie later wrote, when he tells us to love our enemies, he gives us, along with the command, the love itself. And that’s what it means to put on Jesus. He wrapped you up so completely that his love flows through you, even when yours runs out.

Today. Don’t just admire Jesus from a distance. Clothe yourself with him. Let his patience be the coat that you wear into conflict. Let his courage be the boots that you lace up for those tough conversations. Let his love be the scarf that surrounds every relationship. Home is where it all begins, but it starts with Jesus covering you. A flourishing home begins when the people inside stop merely hanging Scripture on the door and start wearing the Savior in their hearts.

Would you pray with me this morning?

Lord, we are marveled at who you are. So good, so loving, infinitely patient with us. I pray, Lord. I pray that you would wrap us up today. Whatever we’re going through, whatever challenges we’re facing or whatever hard thing we’re dealing with. Lord, we know it’s not overwhelming to you. It feels overwhelming to us. And so we just give them to you and we ask you, cover us, Lord. May your words be so ingrained to us that we just can’t help but tell others about you. Thank you Lord, for being in our lives. You’re the most important thing in our lives, and there’s not even a close second in your name that we pray. Amen.