In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of living a life that reflects our love for God. He acknowledges that people often forget the specific details of sermons, but what truly leaves an impression is the way we live our lives. The preacher highlights the significance of teaching our children to love God and live according to His commandments. He encourages the congregation to prioritize their love for God in every aspect of their lives, as it is the love of Christ that motivates and guides us in our actions.

I have actually been looking forward to this time. I wanted to take a time where I could have the whole message just in regard to children. And the Lord worked this thing out just perfect. Just right down to today. Today was the day, and I didn't know when it would fall, that in our Desert Survival series we would take one of the most important lessons as we close up on this series, and I think next week is going to be our last series, and talk about the children. Because do you know that God, before he let the children of Israel go into the land, went over with them very specifically about the children. And Jesus came back and gave the answer to one of the young lawyers that came to him. He asked him, what is the greatest commandment? And the greatest commandment was the same thing that Jesus told the parents, or that God told the parents back in the desert to teach their children. So it's a very fitting time. I've titled this message, it's a strange title maybe, but I've titled it, To Love Is To Live. And to live is to love. And in relation to children, when they don't grow up knowing how to love, then they really don't know much about living. And it's a sad thing to work with children. I know in Omaha, when I used to work with those that were down on the other side of the tracks, down in downtown Omaha, how so many of these kids, they had no concept of what love was. They trusted nobody, not even their own family, and especially you. And the only thing they wanted to get was all they could get for themselves. And they would steal, and they would cheat, and they would lie. And what a privilege it is for us if we have been given that privilege to grow up in a Christian home. To see love. And thus we can learn that to love is to live, and to live is to love. Let's bow for a word of prayer. Father, I thank you for this special time. Now as Stephen and Monica have little Samuel to raise up and to enjoy the pleasures that he will give them, I just pray that through all of this, that he will not miss out on Jesus Christ. So many children in this world are missing out on life. And Lord, you just speak to our hearts this morning. You put into my mind maybe something that I haven't thought of yet, that you haven't spoke to me about, about sharing. Maybe we'll just talk this morning, Lord, about you and what you want us to know about children. If there's one here that's not saved, Holy Spirit, would you just draw that person to you? In Jesus' name, amen. I don't know about you, but I like children. Before I liked children, I was scared of them because I didn't know anything about them. I was raised up in my family, there were just two of us. My sister was about four years younger than me. As I grew up, I wasn't around little children a whole lot. If they were around, they were something to stay away from because they were delicate, they hollered and got you in trouble. So you just stayed away from them. So I just didn't know much about children. I was 29 years old when I was born. I was 11 years old before we had our first one. But by that time, I'd been observing quite a bit, and I'd set my mind to observe and try to learn beforehand about children. Now that I've observed these 11 years, I've come to the conclusion that I still don't know much about children, except that they can teach you an awful lot. I like what Mitzi put in the bulletin on faith. You want to learn about faith, you study a little child. They can teach you about faith. And we adults think we know a lot about faith, but they know about faith. This is why I believe Jesus really rebuked the disciples so hard when they were trying to hold them away. He said, no, you bring the little children in. Little children, bring them to Jesus. I just want to rumble down through here and just share some thoughts with you. Something happened a few weeks ago in our home. Something that just me and one of my little children know about. And the one that said it has already forgot about it, but I noticed it and I just remembered it as I was preparing this message this week. Lord, how do I start off this message about how to survive the desert? You see, the children of Israel have come up to the land again and they're fixing to go into the promised land. And God has given them all the laws that they need to survive. And when he comes down to the very main thing that he wants them to do, the very main thing that he wants them to do, it has to do with the children. And I'd like to read to you this morning from Deuteronomy 6, before I share this little story about what happened to us. Deuteronomy 6, if you want to turn there. These are the commandments that the Lord has given to Israel. Deuteronomy 6, and I'll start reading in verse 1, and maybe by the time I get down to about verse 3 or 4 or 5, you'll be there with me if you're not there yet. Deuteronomy is the fifth book in the Old Testament. Now, these are the commandments, the statutes, the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that you might do them in the land whither you go to possess it. That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou and thy son and thy son's all the days of thy life, and that thy days may be prolonged. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it, that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and here's the heart of the passage, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, when thou walkest by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the post of thy house and on thy gates. And it shall be when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land where he swore unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities which thou buildest not, and houses full of good things which thou fillest not, and wells digged which thou diggest not, and vineyards, olive trees which thou plantest not, and when thou shalt have eaten and be full, then beware, lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage. When we forget the Lord, we forget to love the Lord. But the greatest thing there, I believe, is four and five, when he says that God is one, and thou shalt love him. You shall love him with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your mind. And that's the heart of this passage. We need to teach our children to love God. We can teach them many things. Now, with our children, we're having a, reading something at the table with them, something geared for children, and then we read through a passage of scripture in the morning before they go to school, and then we've got a storybook, a doctrinal storybook at night, we read to them, and then we teach them memory verses and things. But I'm convinced that they're not going to remember that much. But what they will remember, what they will remember is our lifestyle. I look back, and I don't remember many things mom and dad said to me, but I do remember how they lived. I remember their habits and how they lived. Now, a few weeks ago, one of our children had a birthday. It was Jennifer. She turned ten, didn't you Jen? And we went out to S&S, and we're shopping for birthday presents, and Josh and I were there, and we had sent Jennifer out to the car, and Joni found the present that she wanted to give to her sister. And Josh had found the present that he wanted to give to his sister. And Joni came up with the present, and I said, well honey, that costs a lot. Matter of fact, it costs all you have. And it was quite a bit more than they normally give. And you know what she said to me? She said, I don't care what it costs. I want to get it. That was the thing she liked. You know, that is probably the best description I can give you of love. Love doesn't care what it costs. And that's just what God did when he came down and he died on the cross. It's going to cost my son, but I love so much, for God so loved the world that he gave all it cost. He gave his son. And I think that love doesn't count the cost. It gives all. And if our children don't learn how to love, and don't learn how to love God, then they're not going to learn how to live. And I'm just going to talk very simply and very plainly, but I think that's what's missing. This world doesn't know how to love. And if we don't love God, we don't know how to live. And what we do many times is we teach our children to love things. And I've even seen people and even have my experiences, and even loving my church to where I love this or that or my church or whatever more than I love God. And that's wrong. The Bible doesn't say love your church. No, it says love God. Love God. Then you'll love the church that preaches the truth if you love God. But we need to teach our children this. Now, how will they learn to love? I ask myself questions. How are my children going to learn to love? And there's only one answer. You know what it is. By example. I can teach them and I can lecture them and you can too. Now you're supposed to love your sister. You're not supposed to do this and that. But they're going to learn to love by example. And that's all there is to it. And there are some questions I ask myself in this passage. This Deuteronomy chapter six lays out really the parents' orders for child training. And I ask three questions. Who to love? And that's right in verse five. The Lord thy God. And in Mark chapter twelve, Jesus came back. Do you remember when that young lawyer came to Jesus? And he said, what's the greatest commandment? And Jesus said, the first of all the commandments. And then he quoted this same passage. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind. And then he added this one, with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. And then the second one is like it. He said, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There's none other commandment greater than these. To love. The greatest thing there is, is to love. And actually if you think about it, salvation is a love affair. It's a love affair. God loves me. I see what he did for me. I repent of my sins and accept Christ as my Savior. I am in love with him now. And I stay in love with him. And how many people say that they are in love with Jesus? In other words, they say they're saved, but they don't love Jesus. You can't have it that way. It just doesn't work. It's a love affair. And then John wrote, we love him because he first loved us. One famous Bible teacher said, really there are only two classes of people in this world. Those that love God and those that hate God. And before you say, well, I'm that person that loves God. Maybe you ought to understand what it is to love God. Because I'm convinced a lot of people have no idea of what it is to love God. I know for many years of my life, I didn't know what it was to love God. And I thought I was saved and I wasn't. I thought that I was good enough to get to heaven and I wasn't good enough. But that first question, who to love? Well, he says, listen, you love God. You just love God. Now we can't leave it there because it's too hard. I got to ask another question. Why do we love him? Well, he said back up in verse one and two, if you want to live, you better love him. You know, Paul, he wrote a letter to the Corinthians and he said, if any man does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema. Let him be accursed. That's pretty strong. But he said, by this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you really love me if you have love one for another. And we're going through 1 John on that. We love so that we can live. And verse two, he said, so that we can prosper. We love him because he first loved us. We love him because he saved us. By the way, this whole thing that we have done in this series, this desert survival series shows us that not very many of those that God delivered out of Egypt loved him because of it. Only two entered the land out of those two to three million people. Two is not a very big percentage rate. You know, in verse 12, he said, beware, lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt. If someone saves you, you're going to love him. As a matter of fact, in verses 20 through 25, he goes over this. He says one day, he said, you're going to get into the land and you're going to tie these little things on your forehead. You're going to have these little things tied on your hands. You're going to be memorizing scripture. You're going to have things scribbled, carved on your doorpost and your kid's going to come out. He's going to look at that. He's going to look at you with this on your head. He says, hey, pop, how come you wear that thing on your head all the time? And you got those little things of paper tied there. What they take is a piece of leather and tie a scripture verse there so they would not forget to memorize scripture and meditate on it. And they'd have it on their hands and all the places God told them to do it. They'd write it on the post and out on the gate. They'd go out the gate and there'd be a verse on the gate. Hey, dad, how come you're doing all that? How come we, how come we have devotions in the morning? How come when I get up, I see you over there on your knees praying? How come I see you in the evening there sitting there with your Bible? How come, how come we go to church every Sunday and Sunday morning, Sunday night and go to church Wednesday night? How come we don't do like everybody else? How do you, how can you do all that? And God said, here's what you're to tell them. Verse 20, when thy son asketh thee in time to come saying what mean the testimonies and the statues and the judgments which the Lord our God hath commanded you, then thou shalt say unto thy son, we were Pharaoh's bondmen in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. He says, don't ever forget and don't let your sons forget that I delivered you out of bondage. Verse 23, he brought us out from thence that he might bring us in. Son, God brought us out of that land so that he could bring us into this land. Verse 24, and the Lord commanded us to do all these statues to fear the Lord our God for our good, that he might preserve us alive as it is this day. And he said, not only are we doing this son to remember that God took us out of Egypt and put us into this land, but he also said that we're to do it for our good. And if we don't do it, bad things are going to happen to us. Now, the reason I read my Bible and the reason I read the Bible to my children and read Bible study, studies to them and stories, and we have scripture memory and we do all kinds of different things. And sometimes we're not consistent on this or that and we'll change our program around. The reason I will try to share things about problems and events and things about God and his word with my children is because I remember what it was like to be outside of Christ. I remember what it was like to be in bondage and I don't want my children to grow up and to go into bondage. I want them to know God and to love him with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind. And God says, you teach your children this. You teach it with all of your heart. He says, first of all, it's got to be in your mind. And you teach them. They won't make it. Well, that's why we love him. We love him because he saved us. The Bible says, let the redeemed of the Lord say so. And the only way we're going to say anything to anybody else is by the way we live. You know what? If I get to preach here for 40 years and then die, when I'm gone, you're not going to remember much what I said. Anybody want to argue? Anybody want to tell me what the title of the sermon was last week? I can't remember it. Much less you. We just don't remember much what's said, do we? I can't remember what went on yesterday, much less last week. But the thing that impresses us is the way we live. And that's what it is with our children. And so all of these things were reminders to live, to love God. Because to live, you've got to love. And to love is to live. The title of that sermon. Well, my children are going to do what I do and they're going to be what I be. So I want to be the best I can be and do the best I can do. Listen to what this little thing says. Someone said this. Children are natural mimics. They act like their parents in spite of every attempt to teach them good manners. Isn't that true? I don't think I'll ever forget. Sometimes I've heard my mom say this many times. I think it embarrasses her. But sometimes I would do something at the table that she didn't like and she'd look over somebody. I didn't raise them like that. You know, he learned that on his own. Doesn't it embarrass you when your kids act like you? You know, we see them running around making fools of themselves. And boy, we want to get out there and stop them. Because it embarrasses. And then we'll see them with these little habits. And we're embarrassed because we see ourselves and we don't like it. Now, kid, don't do that anymore. I'm going to straighten you up. I'm going to iron you out. You've got to quit doing that because it embarrasses me. The fact that a kid looks at us, man, what do you mean? I can learn that from you. And now all of a sudden I'm getting in trouble for doing it and you do it. God says it's not right. He says you get the Word of God. You put it in your heart. You memorize it. You meditate upon it. You talk about it. You get it yourself and you give it to your kids so that you'll do right and so that they'll do right and then their kids will do right. You break the pattern and somebody's going to end up with a shattered life. My children will just do what I want, what I do. Now, who to love? We love the Lord our God. Why do we love Him? So that we can live right, so that we can make it. But then there's a third thing and that's how do we love Him? How do we love Him? How do you love Jesus? You remember one day Peter had denied his Lord. He said, I won't deny you. Come along just a few hours later. He denied Him three times. And then Jesus went to the cross. He was crucified, buried and He rose again and He came later and He found Peter. And you know what He asked Peter? First thing He asked Peter. He asked Him three times by the way. He said, do you love me? Do you love me? Peter, you said you love me, but you denied me. And Jesus didn't say all this. All He said was, do you love me? He said, if you do, then feed my lambs. Do you love me? Then feed my sheep. Peter was just broke because he knew that he really didn't love Jesus the first time the way he should have. He didn't love Him in his actions. But then Peter turned around and he followed Jesus and he loved Him the way he was supposed to love Him with his life. Now the Bible says that we're to love God very simply in verse five, with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our might. Very simply, with all of my mind, with all of my emotional being, with all of my feeding, with all of my physical strength. Everything I do is to be done out of love for God. You know what Paul said? Paul said, the love of Christ constrains me. Why do we do these crazy things that we do, traveling here and there, up and down the country, telling people about Jesus? Why do we go here where they're going to stone us and go over here where they're going to kick us out of town and over here where they're going to throw us in jail and in a dungeon? Because the love of Christ constrains me. That's why I do these things. I don't go to church because that's something I need to do. I go to church because I love God. I don't read my Bible because it's something that I think I need to do to please you so that I can have a lot of knowledge. No, I love my Bible because I love God. And this is what our children need to pick up from us. I don't know what's going to be like when my children grow up. There are some fears there, because I see that life just doesn't always work out. But if I teach them how to love God, I think they'll make it. I think they'll make it. How do we love Him? With all of our heart. It bothers me sometimes when we're not loving. I'm not loving with all of my heart. When I'm not doing as much as I think I can do, maybe there could be a little less TV and a little bit more Scripture memory. Get a little conviction here. I'm getting tromped all over. I'm getting tromped. Because I know that's true. There can always be a little bit more. In verse 6, I love Him by obeying Him. And how do you do that? He says, just do these words. These words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. David said, Thy word have I hid in my heart. In other words, I've memorized it. And I meditate upon it. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. We've got to do that with our children. We've got to teach them the Word of God. Get them to memorize it and meditate upon it and everything. Jesus said, If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And the only way to keep them is to teach them to them. The Hebrews had a system that was unbelievable. By the time those children grew up, they knew the Old Testament. They could quote thousands of Scriptures to you. This is why the early Christians, when they got saved, they were dynamite, because they were filled with the Spirit and they had all of these Scriptures. And they were just a terror where they went. Everybody received Christ all over the place. They were so filled with the Word of God and by the Spirit of God, the Word of God just flowed out of them. We have shallow Christianity today. Because we have a shallow Christianity, we have a shallow love for Jesus. Well, how do we love the Lord? We love the Lord by putting everything we can into doing it, loving it. First in you, the visual aids. I hope that my children never forget when they get up in the morning, the girls will come tromping through. There's a back room and a quiet place with an extra bed that we have. I hope they will never forget when they come tromping through there to go to the bathroom. They look over to the left and sometimes they see Dad over there on his knees. And someday that may be the very thing that might save them out of some troubles and problems. How do I love God? I love God by giving Him first hour in the morning, giving Him first place in my life, giving Him the first of my income as all of these things were commanded us in the scripture. Giving Him first in everything. As a matter of fact, that's what Jesus said, you shall seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these other things will be added unto you. Just love me. Just love me. Children need to see love. They need to see it and to feel it. They just need to see it and feel it. So I hope they remember that. I'm convinced that if I love God the way that I'm supposed to, with all of my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, that this will help me love others too. It's hard when they go to school. It's hard when we go to work, isn't it, to love people, isn't it? But I think if I would love God, it would be a lot easier to love people. People aren't easy to love, are they? You know why they're not easy to love? I'll tell you why. Because they're just like me. They get stingy sometimes, they get greedy, they get grouchy, grumpy, grumpy. But if we'll love God, we'll learn to love Him. If we teach our children to love God, then they'll learn to love people too. And they'll learn to forgive. The Bible says in above all things, 1 Peter 4, 18, above all things have fervent love among yourselves. He said make sure you've got a lot of love for each other. Why? He says because love will cover the multitude of sins. There's going to be a lot of mistakes, a lot of sins, but if you've got love, it'll cover it up. That's why Jesus can forgive us, because He's got love. Love covers. God says, I love you, and because I love you, I'll cover. If you love your wife, you'll cover, you'll forgive her. If you love your husband, you'll cover, you'll forgive him. If you love me, you'll cover, you'll forgive me. If I love you, I'll cover, I'll forgive you, I'll just forget it. Love covers a multitude of sins. What kind of love though? It's love for God. You see, if we get that, then we've got it all. Well, I wonder, I just wonder, on that day when Jesus went over by Judea, it says He went way off in the wilderness, and the crowds were coming to Him, and He dealt with this one and that one. One day, Jesus was there teaching, and these parents, they came and they were shoving their children up to Jesus. They were getting their children up there. They wanted Him to touch them and to bless them. And here come the disciples to the rescue. Now, get out of here. Get all these kids out of here. Come on. They're going to crowd things in. People want to hear Jesus. Get the kids out of here. And I just wonder, boy, they didn't taste just a little flash of the wrath of God. When Jesus turned, as they brought young children to Him, that He should touch them, and His disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, He was much displeased, much displeased. He wasn't happy with that at all. And He said unto them, Allow the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God is a little child. He won't enter into the kingdom of God. And I want to close up with this. The best thing you can do for your child is to bring them to Jesus, young. My folks wasn't perfect, and neither were yours, and I'm not perfect, but I thank God that they brought me to Jesus. They got me into the atmosphere, at least where I would hear about them. I remember those Sunday mornings when I pulled the covers over my bed. Mom would come in there, and I was dead. Mom would say, Get up. Man, I wouldn't move an eyelash. Let's go to church. Let's go into church. You know what? She wouldn't let me get away with playing possum. She wouldn't let me get away with playing sick. If I had to play sick, I had to be sick all day, you know. You couldn't get sick after church when they come back. You couldn't go out and play. And boy, I'd try to get out of this and that. But they were consistent. Every Sunday, we went to church. Every Wednesday, we went to prayer meeting. I'm convinced I wouldn't pray. I wouldn't go to prayer meeting if mom and dad hadn't taught me what was right. But they stuck with it. It was their consistency that did it. They brought me to Jesus, and because they brought me to Jesus, one day I found them. I really put up quite a stink. I kicked. But oh, praise the Lord. I made it through. Life is hard. The Bible says, train up a child in the way he should go. And when he's old, he won't depart from it. That means he won't go away from it. And the way he should go is, if you see your child's got a talent in a certain area, then you raise him up to develop that talent for God's glory, to live for God's glory in that area. That's what that passage means. But somebody said this about that verse. Train up a child in the way he should go, and go that way yourself. In other words, the path you want your child to trod, then you tromp out that path for him. I want to close with this little story. It's a true little story. And it happened in a town in America. The town that happened in, the town just like this. The name of the town that had happened was a name that sounded just like ours. Gordon. Because this is where it happened. I'm not going to give you the name, but it's something that I took out of something that come home through our children's papers. It's a little poem that a child wrote about its dad in some papers. And I cut it out and I kept it. This is the first time. It's been a year or two now since this was wrote. But I just want to read this so that we will understand how important it is to do this, to teach our children. And not only to teach our children, but that we would teach our children how to teach their children. In other words, I would teach my son how to teach his son. I don't have the responsibility directly, but I've got it indirectly, to teach your grandchildren. And if we don't, here's what's going to happen to their lives. And it's already happening. We see it all over the place. But this is a little poem that a little child, I think probably about second or third grade, wrote up at the grade school. Part-time dad is what they wrote. Just a little kid. Each Sunday morning finds him knocking at the door of the house he used to live in, but doesn't anymore. He's there to keep his promise to the eager little lad. He knows he's looking forward to a visit from his dad. They'll spend the day together, both trying to pretend that the pleasant time they're sharing doesn't have to end. Dad knows that it isn't possible, and when the day is done, the visit will be over for this father and his son. Since the breakup of his marriage, this is how it has to be. No matter how he wishes, things had turned out differently. In spite of all that happened, at least he can be glad his little boy still loves him, though he's just a part-time dad. Let's bow our heads and close our eyes. Father, we realize that sin does things like this. It's sin that breaks the marriages, sin that breaks the home, and the little children, though they have nothing to do about it, grow up with so much hurt and pain because a mom or a dad didn't love God. And because they didn't love God, they didn't love each other. And because they didn't love each other, they go their different ways. And the little children grow up with a pattern, and that pattern they follow, and then their children follow. Oh, Father, would you break that pattern? Would you send a revival to our nation to turn us back to you? Our homes are being destroyed. Lord, I thank you for the children that we have. You give us wisdom and strength to raise them with all of our heart to know you, with all of our mind, with all of our strength, with all of our will to put the effort in, extra effort. We thank you for these little blessings. We thank you for little Samuel this morning. May this little boy grow up to be a mighty man to God in whatever he does, and may he learn that from his mom and dad. And may my children learn it from me and my wife. Lord, maybe there's one here that needs to receive Jesus as their Savior. Maybe your Spirit has spoke to them that they're not saved, and right now where they sit, they need to just make an altar, and they need to crawl in that altar, and they need to just say to you, here I am, God. I'm a lost sinner, but I'm willing to turn from my sin, and by faith I turn to you, and I ask you to forgive me, and to come into my heart, and to save my soul. And Lord, if they've done that, if they've received you as their Savior, then sometime, either today or sometime soon, they will confess you. For you said, whoever believes in me will not be afraid or ashamed of me, but they'll confess me before men. Thank you, Father. You remind us. You remind us, Lord, that if we want to love, then we have to love you, if we want to know what love is. And that to love is to live, and to live is to love. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.