Message from Bobby McGraw on August 18, 2022
In this episode of the weekday podcast, Pastor Bobby McGraw reflects on the importance of passing down faith to future generations. He points out how, especially in secular cultures, faith isn’t always a given and can be easily lost if expectations aren’t raised. Drawing on Deuteronomy 6, Pastor Bobby shares Moses’ call to love God with all our heart, soul, and strength—a command not meant to be taken lightly. He encourages listeners, especially those with kids, grandkids, nieces, or nephews, to actively guide the next generation toward a deep love for God, rather than letting culture set the standard.
Well hey guys, it's so great to see you here on another weekday podcast. If you find these helpful, if you don't mind, would you share them on social media? The easiest link to share is just weekdaypodcast.com, and that would go a long way in encouraging somebody and helping us spread the good news of Jesus.
Well today I want to think a little bit about this idea of we're one generation away of walking away from our faith. I think one of the things that we take for granted sometimes, especially if you live where I'm recording this from, in the South, where there's just churches everywhere, is we assume that faith will always be around us. But let's be honest, that's not true. I mean if you look at our friends in Canada and see the direction they're going, you look at our friends in Europe and see the direction they're going, if you go to basically the coastal cities of the U.S., what you quickly find is that there is a very secular culture around us that really has no foundation of faith.
Now I believe that if you're listening to this, you have a desire to see the next generation catch the faith that you're walking with. And so today I want to give you one simple idea to think about, and it's this idea, what would happen if we raised the expectation? What would happen if we raised the expectation for the next generation? In other words, what do we expect when it comes to faith? Oftentimes, if we're not careful, we'll lower the bar. If we're not careful, we'll just say, well, I hope they have their own walk with Jesus. And that's fine, but when Moses talked about this in Deuteronomy 6, he has this sense of urgency. When he says to them in Deuteronomy 6 verse 4, he says, listen, O Israel, and there's this sense of, man, we've got to listen up. And he says in verse 5, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. You must commit, verse 6, yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I'm giving you today.
Moses wasn't lowering the expectation. Moses wasn't just saying, well, figure it out yourself. What Moses is doing in this pivotal moment in the generation he's speaking to is he reestablishes the cornerstone principle of their nation. And he says, listen, listen up. The Lord is our God. The Lord alone. Love him with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.
And so today, as you think about this, if you have a kid or if you have a grandkid, if you are an uncle or an aunt, what if instead of just letting culture shape our next generation, what would happen if we raise the expectation and say, you know what, the standard that we're lifting up, the goal that we're lifting up is that the next generation would come to know God and love him with all of their heart. Moses was drawing the circle around the entire faith of his people. And that center of that circle was loving God. It's more important than the commands. It's more important than the commitments. It is the number one thing to love God.
And so today, I want to encourage you to think about that. What would happen if we raise that expectation and we helped not just talk about religion or rituals or behavior? What would happen if we talked about loving God with all we have?
Have a great day. We'll see you back here soon.
