Generational Faithfulness
Sunday, October 12, 2025
Welcome! Welcome to our special guests joining us today as we will later be sharing in the dedication on Rylee Houk! Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing in this special moment for Rylee and her family.
Call to Worship: Let us prepare our hearts to worship our God and King of our hearts this morning.
We come in here today-maybe some of us rushed to try to make it here in time; struggling to get out the door; heavy hearted in grief or the weight of the world pressing on us. Some of us come hard hearted-angry at the world, or even God for events that transpire in our lives. Some of us come in here because we know we should be here to some extent, but we leave our heart elsewhere. Some come in here physically, but our minds are off doing other things. Some come in hungry in search of the Bread of the Life that satisfies and desire to drink of the Living Water that refreshes our soul and spirit.
However you are coming today, I’m so glad you are here. You know it is God who drew you here and says, “Come as you are. I love you as you are.” Won’t you give God your time, attention, and even your hearts to see what He might have for you today? Won’t you set aside all that is bouncing around in your mind or weighing on you to fix or to solve, and just be present -remembering or even discovering who our God is and why we take this time to worship Him?
Let’s pray: Father God, I thank You for every heart You called here today. It is not by chance we are here. You have stirred in us a willingness, a longing, a curiosity and a desire to be with You. Thank you for all who responded to Your call. We invite You to move freely among us through Your Spirit. Let Your peace wash over our minds and hearts and quiet us. Let our spirit join with Yours and let our gaze be fixed squarely on You, our God, our King, our Father, and our Comforter. Let Your Presence be known this morning-reveal Yourself to those who are seeking. Remind us Lord of who You are. We are here as Your children to worship You, for who You are, We are here to bless Your great name so we ask: Come, thou fount of every blessing, Tune my heart to sing thy grace.
Praise Songs
Intro: In a little bit we’ll be rejoicing in dedicating young Rylee to the Lord and before we do that it seemed quite appropriate to remember why we take time and honor special ceremonies such as this and later being baptized as one is old enough to believe in the Lord and Savior and make their own decision to follow the Lord. For these ceremonies mark in our lives that we are God’s children, set aside for His purposes and glory, and we acknowledge Him as our God and Jesus as our Lord to guide us.
In dedications we are professing we, and any children we are gifted with, are committed to following You Lord, and we give You all that we are; first our hearts in devotion; and also that which is nearest and dearest to us-our children. We give them back to You Lord for we trust You to guide them in the way they should go, and we commit to doing our part to teach them who You are. We will tell of Your wonders over and over again so that we don’t forget and so that they will know and also believe. This is the essence of building generational faithfulness.
This is what Israel was instructed to do by God, as they were rescued out of slavery in Egypt and led into freedom. First they resided in the wilderness and everything was hard and uncertain. They were completely dependent on God’s provision and protection. He provided miracle after miracle to care for them-first in their mighty exit with the parting of the Red sea and then sweeping the waters over the Pharaoh’s army chasing them. Then making sure their soles on their shoes never wore out, to providing manna each morning from heaven to eat, to having quail drop from the sky so they had meat, to water gushing from a rock, to helping them win battles to actually occupy the Promised Land as they entered it. In this land that had everything they could ever want and it was all established and ready to go for them. God was faithful through it all and they entered and settled into the Promised Land.
Before they finished this journey, Moses shared these words from the Lord, God Almighty that I will share with all of you.
May we have ears to hear this morning what God requires of us, His redeemed and favored children.
Deuteronomy 6: 4-12 NIV
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 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. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
10 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, 11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, 12 be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
Faithfulness is Rooted in Love.
First let us not miss this very important truth God calls us to acknowledge. The Lord is One. This means He is supreme, there is no one or nothing else that is higher than Him, more important than Him, or more powerful than Him. It also means we are not to put anyone or anything in a higher place in our lives because God comes first. He is one-first. He’s calling us to set Him apart in His rightful place-all alone-because no one else can hold a candle to Him. Do you see God as First, #1, supreme above anything and everything in your life? He wants you to, because He is.
Second- we have a command, not just a suggestion, to love God. This is not something He forces; but He calls us to willingly choose to love Him-to willingly open our hearts to let Him occupy them. Not just a little bit or sometimes, or when we’re feeling extra lovey and all is right in our world…. We are to love God with all that we are, all the time. So not just in the words we say, or thoughts we have, but at our core-we are to receive His love and give love back to Him.
Deuteronomy 6:5 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
This is a truth all throughout Scripture from Old Testament through New Testament. This never changes and this commandment is at the heart of all other teaching. Jesus affirms this when one of the religious teachers asked him a question-out of all the things we DO, to be a good Christian, what is the most important. Look at Jesus’ answer.
Mark 12:29-30 28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” 29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
Jesus goes right back to the words God spoke through Moses.
Why is this emphasized so much in His Word, to love God with all that we are, all our heart?
1 John 4:15-16 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
Simply, God is love. He doesn’t strive to be loving like you and I can at times with people. His very essence is love. The only reason you and I love at all and have that ability is because of God. It’s His love in us that enables us to love Him and love others. So if we don’t open our hearts to love Him, we are not living in God and He is not living in us. We may know about Him, or some of His ways, but we are not living in Him. We are not in relationship with Him.
God calls to each of us, open your heart to Me. Jesus knocks on the door of our heart and waits for us to answer and let Him in. The Spirit comes and makes His home in our heart as we believe, thus being able to teach us the ways of God that are good.
God beckons us:
Proverbs 23:26 My son, give me your heart and let your eyes delight in my ways,
Faithfulness Requires Remembering.
As we learn and believe, God calls us also to remember so He calls us to read His Word often that it might be sealed on our hearts. In Israel’s time they mostly spoke of His ways to one another. Either way, God says let My Word of truth settle into your heart. Let it be sealed there, for from your heart it will become your guide and foundation on which you make your life choices. The youth were just learning about Core Truths they have and can develop to guide their life choices in ways that align with and honor God. These can be established the more we read and know His Word-that tells us who He is. These core truths become an anchor to your soul.
Deuteronomy 6:6 . 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.
So Israel did that-they opened their heart to God and they professed their love and faithfulness to God, and as they became comfortable in their new life and things were peaceful, they would forget. Or as they become intertwined with other nations who worshipped other gods and lived by other practices not of God, they would become distracted or discontented thinking chasing after something else would offer them something greater than what they had.
Sound familiar? It’s no different today. We are thousands of years from those times and yet we are just the same.
All too often, we can get comfortable or distracted with other things and we aren’t reading His Word of truth as often; we aren’t speaking of God’s Word; we aren’t coming to church; and pretty soon we’re no longer remembering just how Great our God truly is. We’re not remembering what He has done, even in our own lives we forget. And our faith diminishes; it’s not as strong as it once was. We’re looking to other sources or crutches to satisfy the longing within-forgetting there is only ONE who will truly satisfy. There is only ONE who is the source for all that we need. We don’t need to look to any other source ever, for God alone is the Lord, always was and always will be! The Lord is One!
God knew Israel would forget and He warned them and gave them something to come back to.
Deuteronomy 6:12 12 be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
He knows we can forget too, so let us hear anew this morning and remember who brought us out of our Egypt-who brought us out of slavery to sin and freed us? Who alone is worthy of our praise and worship?
Our Father God and we praise Him through the name above all other names, Jesus Christ!
Let us look to the Psalms when we need to be reminded and find Words to bring our heart back into remembrance and reverence.
Psalm 77:11-13 11 I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. 12 I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds.” 13 Your ways, God, are holy.
What god is as great as our God?
Notice the command didn’t stop with just those adults God was speaking into at that time. God commanded them to teach their children, and then their children, and their children and so on. For as strong as our faith might be in God, our children are not saved by our faith alone, they must develop their own faith and trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. This is why we must teach them to love God with all their heart, mind and strength and to know of His ways, so they too, can believe and receive Christ as their personal Savior. So they too, can know the joy and peace of sharing a loving relationship with Jesus.
If someone is telling me all about a delicious ice cream sundae with all the toppings and how good it is-I don’t want to just hear about it, I want to enjoy one myself!
We don’t want our children to just hear about our faith in Jesus and how great our walk is with Him; we want to teach and encourage them to have their own relationship with Christ!
Faithfulness Requires Teaching.
Deuteronomy 6:7 7 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.
God called Israel from generation to generation to talk about His Word and His ways in everyday life. Link His truth to everyday things we do and decisions we make, for God should be at the heart of all we do and say. We are still to do this and show our children how good it is to feel comfortable with God and also respect Him as our Holy God. We want our children to know they can come to God with all their questions, fears, worries, hopes and talk with Him like their closest friend and trust He cares for them. They will come to know this as truth when we share His Word that teaches us about who God is.
This is the beautiful relationship of families set in a church family. There is great responsibility to teach our children to know the Lord and how to walk with Him, but as we are part of a church body, we have the joy in learning how to do this with others alongside of us. We have the strength of others helping us remember in times we might forget.
Proverbs 22:6 NASB Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he grows older he will not abandon it.
Further in Deuteronomy we read a promise for our faithfulness to raise up generations to know the Lord:
Deuteronomy 11:19-21 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, 21 so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.
Conclusion: Generational faithfulness is rooted in love for God and His Word. Love draws us to learn His character and to understand His ways that are good. Love reminds us of His faithfulness and gives us hope for our future. Love compels us to share and teach the next generation so they too walk in the ways of the Lord. Each generation learning the love of God and developing a personal relationship with God.
Let’s pray.
Prayer for a rededication of our hearts or an offering of our hearts to God, through Christ our Savior:
Sinner’s prayer: “Jesus, right now, I ask you to become Lord of my life. You are my Savior and I thank You for the sacrifice You made on the cross. I receive Your grace and confidently believe that my life is forever changed.
Jesus, help me to live for You. My heart and my life are open to what You have for me. I want to know Your ways and love people as You love me. Everything within me is submitted to You. Thank You for Your mercy, hope, and unfailing love. In Your name I pray, Amen.”
For those of us who might feel a nudge to rededicate our hearts to the Lord, to offer our whole heart to Him this morning, let us pray:
Lord Jesus, I rededicate my life to you. Create a new heart in me, with new desires and a renewed commitment to follow you completely. I desire to love you with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to glorify your name in all I do. I offer myself to you now as a living sacrifice, to be used in any way you will. Thank you for your unending grace and love. In Your precious name Jesus, I pray.
Child Dedication
And now is the perfect time to now hold a dedication ceremony to rejoice in God’s gift of Rylee Houk to her parents Kelsey and Mitch. Would you as a family please come forward now.
Offering
Prayers:
Final Song
Final Blessing: Colossians 3:16-17 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed
, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
