Family Tradition

SUMMARY

Drawing from Deuteronomy 6, Karl Ihfe reminds us that every family passes something down — the question is what. Real, lasting faith is built not through perfect plans or polished religion, but through genuine love for God, everyday moments, intentional habits, and a shared community of believers. As Karl puts it, it takes more than a village — it takes a church — to pass down a faith worth inheriting.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Well, it's good to be with you this morning. Church. If you have not turned to Deuteronomy 6, I invite you to go that way. We're celebrating families today here at Broadway and all kinds of families. Because our family at Broadway is made up of all kinds of families.

And some families have kids and some families don't. And some families are made up of a couple, and some are just single, and some have grandparents and some don't. We have all kinds of families here. We're so excited and thankful to get to celebrate with each and every kind of family. Because in Scripture, one of the things that family talks or that Scripture talks about and tells us about family is that family isn't just who lives in your house, but family is who shares your faith.

And so we are a faith family here together. And one of the things that families do is they pass on things. They pass on traditions. Some of you may even now, if I ask you to think about what's a family tradition that you passed on, It's a question I ask all of my premarital couples that I get to work with. What are some of the traditions, the rituals that your families pass down?

A lot of them have to do with food and meals. Who has a family tradition around a meal or a table somewhere, right? Holidays, birthdays, all kinds of different traditions that we love to pass down into our families. Every family passes things down. Maybe it's values, a culture, habits.

When we talk in premarital, we talk about conflict, styles. How did your family do conflict? How did your family do celebration? How did your family give and receive love? Families have a way of passing things down to the next generation.

So it's not a matter of if they'll pass something down, but what. What will your family pass down? What are we passing down? I think that's the heart of this passage here in Deuteronomy 6, as Moses and the people are standing on the edge of the promised land about to go in. And Moses knows he's not going to be able to go in with the people of God.

He's not going to be able to go in. God's already told him that. But he knows another generation is coming up, and so he's speaking to them about their faith. In that passage that Amelia read for us just so beautifully a moment ago, he shares a few things about how do we create these family traditions? How do we build a family tradition?

That first one is family tradition that starts with love. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all Your soul and with all your strength. Everything begins right there. Moses says, before there's teaching, there's love. Before there is instruction, there's devotion, and before there is influence, there's affection.

Jesus was once asked the same question. Rabbi, what's the most important commandment? What's the most important thing we could do? Jesus quotes this very passage, love the Lord your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Jesus affirmed what Moses said.

Faith starts with love. And part of what this means is we can't pass on what we don't already possess. And this is important for those of us who want to know and love and follow Jesus and want our. Our kiddos and our grandkids and our faith family to know and love and follow Jesus. Because we're going to pass on something.

Are we just passing on church attendance? Are we just passing on expectations morally? Are we just passing on religious language? What we see here in Deuteronomy 6 and we hear echoed in Jesus teaching is that real love for God can produce real faith, the next generation. And so parents and grandparents and church family, the greatest gift we give to our children is not perfection.

It's seeing adults who genuinely love God. And in doing so, they love one another. Not adults who know every answer, but adults who worship and who pray and adults who make mistakes and they repent and they say, I'm sorry. Adults who sometimes struggle with doubt and who also trust deeply. Adults who keep showing up day after day, week after week, mile after mile.

So the first question we have to ask ourselves this morning that Deuteronomy invites us to ask is, do I love the Lord with all my heart? And if not God, is there a way that I need to be loving you more faithfully? You see, faith that lasts comes from someone who's close to us, who loved God sincerely. So faith, tradition, it starts by building love, but it also is built in everyday moments of life. These commandments Moses says, that I give to 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, that faith.

Excuse me, that means faith is not only something that exists in church buildings, but in minivans and in Honda Accords. It exists in kitchens and in living rooms and dining rooms, on the ball field, in the band hall, or on the performance center. Faith belongs in the everyday and in the ordinary on Tuesday afternoons and Friday nights. Jesus once said this out of the overflow of your heart, your mouth will speak. You see, whatever fills our hearts can't help but spill out into our mouths and into our lives.

So if sports is filling up your heart, then sports is gonna be what you talk about. Or if money fills up your heart, then money's gonna be what you talk about. If fear or anxiety fills our hearts, then fear is what we talk about. But when God fills our hearts, we can't help but talk about Him. We can't help but speak of Him.

And this is important because discipleship is not usually this dramatic experience. Discipleship is actually built through the repetitive, ordinary little things that we do every day. A prayer before school, or conversation around the dinner table, or an apology when you've made a mistake. It's encouraging a friend when they're down, or reading a passage of scripture before bed, or maybe when you get up in the morning. See, these moments may feel small, but what we discover is they begin to build on one another.

That these small moments, repeated over and over again, become habits. And then habit starts to shape culture. You know, sometimes we think, well, I've got to create the perfect scenario for my devotional life. I think what Moses would say and what Jesus would encourage is, actually, that's not true. It's more important when you do in the everyday moments, in the quiet, in the stillness, but also in the loud and in the crazy.

So Moses says, impress these commandments on your kids. Talk about them when you lie down and when you get up and when you're at home sitting on the couch, and when you're in a car driving to school or driving to work. In those everyday moments of life, talk about who we are and why we are and how we are and what we are. You see, God works in the ordinary places in everyday life to create lifelong faith. And so it begins with love.

It's built in the everyday, but it also requires intention.

Tie them, he says, as symbols on your hands, Bind them on your foreheads, Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. You know, in other words, put reminders everywhere. Build your life in such a way that it keeps pointing back to God. Because faith doesn't happen by osmosis, and it doesn't happen by accident either. Most of us have learned this hard lesson of life.

Anything worth doing and worth having and worth becoming, it takes intention. It takes purpose. Whether it's a marriage or a friendship or even your physical health or your business, it all requires intention. So our spiritual life is no different. Jesus said, everyone who hears These words of mine and puts them in into practice.

Who begins to practice them. He says, it's like a wise man who built his house on the rock. You see, if we leave faith formation and being intentional to other forces, they'll be glad to step in and help. And your screens will be glad to disciple your kid and you Culture will be glad to disciple your child and you. Your schedule will be glad to disciple your kid.

The algorithms will be glad to disciple you see? So we have to decide what intentional rhythms will we put into place in our lives that will shape our home. One of the partners that we've worked with in the past when talking about this very thing, gave us this framework. We are thinking about, how do we help equip families and folks in faith formation. They said, make it easy, make it likely, and give them a clear path.

It talks about intention. What are the ways that we're trying to build faith formation into our families? That's a challenge our leadership team has put upon our church. And so we've got Caroline and Brian helping us as families. How do we do that?

We just hired Carter to come alongside us and say, all right, as adults, how do we put these intentional processes in place that we might become who we long to be? You see, we don't need a perfect plan, but we need an intentional one. We need one that helps shape us into the people that God has called us to be. So a tradition starts in love. It's built in the everyday.

It's also built with intention, but it's a shared responsibility. We see Moses begins this word to the people by saying, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Notice the challenge here. He's speaking to the entire community, not just moms and dads, not just those who have kids in their current household. It's the whole people of God.

That means passing. Faith has always been a communal process. It's always been something we do together. Parents lead, absolutely, but they were never meant to lead alone. The church has a role.

And that's one of the things I love about Broadway, is everybody has a role here. Whether you're single or married, whether you have kids or not, whether you're a grandparent or not, whether you're working or not, you have a role. You have a place. Singles have a role. Students have a role.

Grandparents have a role. Teachers have a role. Mentors have a role. Jesus said, whoever does the will of the father, the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother. Right.

When told Jesus, your family's outside. He goes, no, no. My family are those who do the will of my father. This church, that we are brothers and sisters, that we are fathers and mothers. He created a spiritual family.

So every child in this church is surrounded by a family of faith. So we have spiritual fathers and spiritual mothers, brothers and sisters had an opportunity this last weekend. Many of you saw our son. Gabe was home, and I got to spend some time with him. And over lunch one day, we were talking about life in Wichita.

He's only been there a few months, and after being here with all of you, he was reflecting on that moment. He said, man, I miss being here. I miss having family. He said, dad, it's hard to live far away. I said, I know it is hard.

That's why church became so crucial for us that we had spiritual grandparents who treated our kids as their grandkids, and they would take them and do all kinds of events and activities with them. They would love them, just like my parents or Kaylee's parents would have done had they been here. I said, you gotta find that kind of community, Gabe. He said, it's hard, dad. It's hard to go by yourself.

I said, it is hard, isn't it? It is hard. So we were talking, and I've been praying, God, would you raise up. Would you raise up a spiritual brother for my son who would say, hey, Gabe, why don't you come with me? Gabe's first couple of years were tough at unt, My mom passed away early on that fall, his first fall.

But there was a family. He went and visited this one church, and there's this little woman in the back. She's probably about mid-70s. And as Gabe kind of showed up late and left early, and on his way out the door, she ran up to him and said, hey, hold on a second. I want to introduce.

Who are you? And he introduced himself, and as they began to talk, learned that he was from Lubbock. She said, oh, really? I just had two friends who were in Lubbock. Where did you go to church?

Went to Broadway. Hey, my two friends were just at Broadway. How are you connected to Broadway? Well, my dad was a teacher. Hey, my two friends went to the Bible class that your dad taught last Sunday.

What? And then they said the words that would forever change Gabe's life, Right? They introduced him to these friends, Jim and Trisha. And Jim and Trisha turned to Gabe and they said, would you like to go to lunch? Gabe sold.

Done. He found his people, right? That was the key to Gabe's Heart.

It was not an if. It was not an Alexander, it was a Boltz. We weren't related by blood. We were related by the blood of Christ. But they cared enough about my son to say, hey, would you come be a part of our family?

That changed his life. I mean, it literally changed his college life.

At church, we care deeply about being family for one another and we want to be that kind of family for all those who who are here today. Whether you have blood family here or maybe it's Jesus blood family here. We are brothers and sisters in Christ together. Some of the most powerful spiritual influence that has had on the next generation doesn't come from blood family, does it? It comes from those who are in the body of Christ.

A church family matters. In fact, we were talking the last couple of weeks as a staff team about how to help this sink in. And one of the ideas that came up was say, well, what if we put into practice these things that we say are so important as a family? And so if you look on the seat back in front of you, you're going to find one of these challenge cards and I invite you to take one of those. The next five weeks, we're just going to have these cards seated on the seat backs in front of you where we just get a chance to try to live out and practice and embody these things that we say help make us God's family.

The first one is a worship challenge. It's just to say, hey, in an everyday moment of your life this week, would you take the challenge? Would you take the challenge at some time this week, gather up with whoever you are with. Maybe it's in your small group, or maybe it's a friend or two on campus, or maybe it's around the lunch table when you're at school or an office cubicle, or maybe it's just sometime in your home with whoever is ground neighbors or whoever is with you and take a chance to worship. Maybe it's in the car on the way to school and you want to sing a song or sing along with a song, which we did a lot and we just invite you, hey, would you take a picture, Just snap a little shot, maybe a little short video and just post that with the BroadwayFamilyChallenge where we can share with one another all the different ways that we're trying to embody being God's people by worshiping together.

You know, Week two, we'll come back and we'll challenge you to show gratitude. Would you pick a moment this week in the everyday life just to stop and show gratitude. Maybe it's to a teacher at school or co worker, teammate. Maybe it's a family member or a neighbor or stranger. Buy somebody's meal in front of you, in line or behind you rather maybe write a note or mail a card.

But would gratitude let that maybe become one of those family traditions that we pass down? Week three, it'll be to serve and same kind of challenge. You'll get a card and an opportunity to serve. Maybe it's to get together and fellowship will be week four, pick a moment where you can actually demonstrate and become be family together. And week five will be praying together.

Take the opportunity to pray. Let's embody this and then share with one another. See, because I'm convinced of this, I want to run this experience. I've been curious how it's going to go. Just invite you for a second just to remember the top three sermons, most impactful sermons you've heard in the last year.

Just take a moment. I want you to get the title of the sermon, the passage, the three points. Like any good Biblical sermon. Who said. Now I know you're gonna say, well, Carl, every week is.

I know, stop flattering me. But just think of three. Okay, I'll give you a second to do that.

Okay, Now I want to invite you to think about who are the three people who have impacted your life in the last year? What's their name? What's their face? How do they impact you?

As much as I would like to believe, most of us are not going to remember very many sermons over time. In fact, I don't always even remember what I preached on last week. But I can tell you who has impacted my life. I can tell you who's cared about me and shown radical love. I can take you to the people who have demonstrated to me that faith isn't just something that we talk about, it's something we live.

Many of us got to get in this room yesterday afternoon and celebrate the life of of a sister who did that so well. Sally Lawson, whose faith impacted not just her belief system, but how she treated one another. She had co workers come from Bryan College Station all the way here because they wanted to tell us about the impact that she had had on them. They're not biological family, they're work family. But because of who God is and how he has been, it's been amazing, incredible.

We remember what faith looked like in our family, don't we? We remember if worship was practiced or not, if gratitude was shown, if Service was valued if meals were shared and if prayer was real. May have told this story before, but one family gathering, the Ihfe clan got together at my sister's house down north of Austin Lake Travis. And we were standing around getting ready to eat dinner. And so we all gathered up and my dad said, all right, we're going to pray.

So we all kind of get around in a big circle. And one of my cousin's kids were kind of like, I don't want to pray. And he says, hey, son, get over here. We're going to pray. And his son turns around and goes, dad, we don't pray. <audible grunt from audience>

That's about how it went over with him too. You know, the hand of God came through the air.

“Well, we do now.”

So that's become one of our little family traditions. When time to pray, we don't pray.

We want to be intentional about building traditions and passing on a faith that really matters, things that are important. And so church, could we commit to passing on a deep love for God with all of our hearts, all of our soul, with all of our strength? Would we be willing to pass down a faith that's every day in the ordinary moments of life, A faith that's shaped by intentional habits that we live out together and a faith that's a shared responsibility? It takes a village. Actually, it takes a church to raise a kiddo.

We want to be those kind of people. Let's build a family tradition worth inheriting. God, may that be our life this week. Help us to become the kind of people who don't just talk about faith, but we live it out. Thank you for those parents, spiritual fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, those spiritual brothers and sisters that had such a huge impact on our lives.

God, I just thank you today for Jim and Trisha Boltz and the way that they loved Gabe so powerfully and it changed his life. God, and we are forever grateful that he had a spiritual family and didn't love him so well. God, we want to be that family. For everybody here in Lubbock as best we can, we thank you for each and every college student and young person and young adult that you've brought to us. God, would you help us to love them?

Well, for every retired person, person who's just moved to Lubbock for work or whether they're married or not, whether they have children or not, whether they have grandkids or not, God, we pray and just thank you. We want to be that kind of family that passes down this kind of Deuteronomy 6. Faith God, thank you for those who have loved us. And by that love you have changed us and brought us into your family. God, would you help us to be those kind of people.

This week we pray in Jesus name. Amen.