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Stepping Up to Greatness: Know It. Do It. Teach It.
June 24, 2025 · 55 min
John Mark explores five key points from the Shema, including knowing one's theology, having a passion for one’s faith, and teaching these truths to the next generation.
Series "Men's Breakfast" with John Mark Caton
John Mark is the Senior Pastor of the thriving Cottonwood Creek Church in Allen, Texas, where he has served since 1995.
June 24, 2025 · 55 min · "Men's Breakfast" with John Mark Caton
John Mark explores five key points from the Shema, including knowing one's theology, having a passion for one’s faith, and teaching these truths to the next generation. ...more Show the full description Show less John Mark explores five key points from the Shema, including knowing one's theology, having a passion for one’s faith, and teaching these truths to the next generation.
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In this video 0:00 Understanding the Shema and Its Relevance16:58 Living Out Faith with Passion and Purpose
Understanding the Shema and Its Relevance 0:02 Welcome to Men's Breakfast with John Mark Keaton. Join us as John Mark shares his insights with other men in his ministry rooted in the timeless truths of the gospel. Today's message will encourage you to0:14 inspire, inform, and invest in the lives of others. This is men's breakfast with your host, John Mark Caton.0:23 How are you doing this morning? Good. Oh, come on. How are you doing this morning? There we go. That's getting a little better. Y'all seem a little down, but let's get it up a little bit. I wanna invite you. Turn0:35 back in your bibles. We've been walking through the book of Deuteronomy. We're gonna be in Deuteronomy chapter 6 today. If you wanna turn to Deuteronomy chapter 6, an incredible passage, that we really wanna look0:47 at and dig in, dive into, today that, is actually not only was it significant in the lives of the Jews in, in the Old Testament and even in the New Testament,0:59 but it also is, it's real powerful even in their lives today. And I'll tell you why here in a second. Deuteronomy chapter 6, there is a passage, that we're gonna look at today in Deuteronomy chapter 61:10 verse 4 to 9. It's called the Shema. Some people call it the Shema. It is, really a core passage, in Jewish thought, in Jewish1:22 prayers, and in everything that you see. As a matter of fact, they still pray this every day. How many of you are familiar with Orthodox Jews? You know, you're familiar you've seen the Orthodox Jews. They're the ones1:34
1:46 the box that they put on their head and the box they put on their arm and the straps on their arm. It is all about this passage, but really you say what's in those boxes? It is a combination of 3 different passages.
1:58 This being the primary 1. They have it written out, and they put it in the phylactery on their forehead and on their arm, as well as the strap. And over the years, this became the core Jewish
2:10 passage to memorize and to pray in the morning and pray in the evening. But they added 2 more. 1 of them we will hit get to in a couple of weeks in Deuteronomy chapter 11.
2:22 And then the other 1 is numbers chapter 15. If you just want to put those down as a note and go read those today, we will hit Deuteronomy chapter 11, in a couple of weeks. But in that, they thought that if
2:34 they prayed pretty much these 3 passages, Deuteronomy 6 verse 4 to 9, which is the core 1, and then these other 2 from Deuteronomy chapter 11 and Deuteronomy and Numbers chapter 15, that they would feel
2:45 like they have prayed the entirety of the law. Basically not every word of it, not all 6 13 commands that you could find in the Torah the first 5 books of the Bible,
2:57 but the essence of the law is found in those and then they said okay not only is the essence of the law found in those, but if you pray those 3 passages each and every day if you have them close to
3:09 your mind and on your arm, that you will have definitely covered the entirety of the 10 Commandments. And I think it's interesting if you want to know, today,
3:21 there there used to be back back in the 19 thirties or forties, the highest concentration of Orthodox Jews was not actually found in Israel.
3:32 It's found in New York City. There were more Orthodox Jews in New York City than anywhere in the world, any other city in the world. Then then the state of Israel was developed and now you have, New York
3:44 City is number 2, Israel being number 1. That there's more Orthodox Jews in, in Israel now than there are in New York City. That's probably a good thing. But interestingly enough and this I think
3:56 applies to us as well. If you ask, go over to Israel, ask the general population. The general population of Israelis
4:08 do not hold Orthodox Jews in high standing. As a matter of fact, a lot of normal Jewish people in Israel hate
4:20 the Orthodox Jews. You wanna know what? Yeah. You wanna know what? They don't do anything. They don't do anything. They don't do anything. They don't have to join the
4:32 army. Everybody, every every adult male, when you get our adult person, men and women, you have to I think when you hit 18 or 19 you have to go spend time in the Jewish army. Guess who does it?
4:44 If you're orthodox Jews, you don't. As a matter of fact right now if you follow, politics in Israel, there is a big push to basically take that right away from the orthodox Jews and say listen,
4:56 fight just like the rest of us. You want to know another reason why? They're not liked. The men don't do anything. That's actually kind of a good gig. The wife does all the
5:07 work. The wife does all the work. She goes to work. She makes some money. What does the dude do? He goes out and hunt out with dude. It'd be like all of here. Let's say we were Orthodox Jews. Okay.
5:19 Here's what you and I would do all day. We would hang out here. We would talk about the Bible. We'd go play sand volleyball. We'd come back in here and pray and we'd pray some prayers and our wives would be working. Now
5:30 how many of you think that's kind of a cool gig? Right? She's got to take care of the kids. She's got to work make all the money. She's got to do her job and then what happens is when I get through with all my all my
5:41 Orthodox friends all of us get through doing all of our good stuff fun stuff then we go play basketball after lunch and we come back in and study the Bible a little bit more. And then our wives would come home. We'd say,
5:52 you got to get ready, get the kids ready, and then we're gonna go out to eat. And so Orthodox Jews are not well liked by other Jews because they
6:04 see them as lazy, and they see them all they care about is their own personal memorize memorization of God's word. Now take that and apply that to us.
6:16 We don't ever want to be the kind of person that all we do is surround ourselves with other people who are just like us, and we spend all of our time reading the Bible. I'm not you say
6:28 that to the pastor. You're saying it's not good to read the Bible. No. I'm saying it is good to read the Bible, but read all of it. The part that you need to go work for your food. That you need to go reach someone else
6:38 for Christ. You don't just Orthodox Jews sit down and look down on all the other Jews. They think they're the most spiritual ones. But more importantly, we don't want to be the kind of men that men that we
6:50 withdraw from society. Because guess what? Who's going to have the greatest impact on either holding back evil in the society or bringing the light.
7:02 It's the dudes that are sitting in this room and if we pull ourselves out of society, if we cloister up and there are a lot of people within Christian circles today. It's really
7:14 a big trend is is to say you know the church we're different. Yeah, we are different. Because we come together, we worship, we pray, we confess our sins and there are there are great. But then we go
7:26 out and as Jesus says, you are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. And so when we come to this passage in the, the Shema,
7:37 man, the Jews pray this a combination of these 3 passages, Deuteronomy 6, Deuteronomy 11, numbers 15, in the morning and in the evening. Orthodox Jews
7:49 pray it all day, study the Torah all day, talk about the Torah all day, but they don't truly impact society. You're either born into it or you're not. And so
8:01 guys, what we want to do is we want to be the kind of men that come in, we study a passage like this for the sole purpose of it in encouraging us and empowering us to be salt and
8:13 light as we leave this place. Does that make sense? And so let's just read Deuteronomy chapter 6. Let's read it together. This is called the Shema. Here's what it says. Says, hear o Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is
8:25 1. He says, love the Lord your God with all your heart. This is Moses talking to the children of Israel before they go into the promised land. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
8:37 with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Verse 7, Impress them upon your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the
8:49 road, when you lie down and when you get up. Then here are the words, these were the phylacteries come in. He says tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the
9:01 door frames of your houses and on your gates. The biggest mistake that I see churches, Christians make when they
9:13 come to the Shema is found basically as you look up there in verse 7. We have a tendency to ignore the rest of this passage and think this only
9:25 applies to us teaching our children. If you go look in an orthodox setting, an orthodox Jewish setting, it's not just about teaching their kids. It is a bunch of
9:36 adult men studying God's Word. My guess is, every time you've heard this passage preached in a Christian
9:48 church by you, the first thing that they talked about is, now let's talk about how we disciple our kids. How many of you know what I'm talking about? That is not the primary purpose of this passage.
10:00 That's not the primary purpose. This is 1 purpose of this passage, but it's not the only purpose of this passage. And I'm gonna give you 5 thoughts that the Jewish mind sees when they see this and see how
10:12 they apply to us. So, the next time you come to this passage, maybe if you're in there and you hear someone say, Hey, we're gonna go to the Shema, it is the 1 that teaches us to disciple our kids. You go, Yes, it talks
10:23 to us about disciplining our kids, but it says way more to the adult man than it does about our child. Because if we don't do the other 4 things, we will never be able to do the 1 thing that is talked about in
10:35 this passage and press them on our kids. Does that make sense? So I'm gonna talk to you, we're gonna walk through this verse by verse and see the 5 things that the Shema talks about to us about,
10:46 challenges us for. Just 1 of the 5 things is to impress them on our children. Now, I also want you to know there are probably some men in this room that when we get to
10:58 this passage, the verse verse 7, this says impress them on their children. My guess is there's gonna be some discouragement in the room. That that there are some men here
11:10 that wish you had a do over with your kids. That you think, well, yeah, that ship has sailed. Anybody in here kind of feel that way. Right? Don't we all?
11:22 I can tell you as your pastor, let me just kind of let me just kind of share this with you as your pastor. I wish I had a do over. I wish I had a do over. I wish I could go
11:34 back, slow down a little bit, and redisciple my kids, re impress upon my kids. But I also wanna tell you, as we move towards that verse, let the cloud of
11:46 guilt and the cloud of discouragement over whether you did a good job or didn't do a good job on your own kids go away. Because in this
11:58 passage, when we get to verse 7, I'm gonna tell you how you can still do it today. Alright? And we're gonna see it through God's word because there's no doubt as I as I talk to to men,
12:10 so many of them say, man, I just wish I could've I wish I could do it over. Because because a lot of us, in a lot of ways, we we developed an American cultural mindset
12:22 of how do we disciple our kids. Well, we turn them over to the professionals. Who are the professionals? Well, they're Dave Marsh. Alright. They're the
12:34 church. So I take them to church on Sundays, or I take them to church on Wednesdays. I turn them over to the professionals. The professionals are going to get them all the spiritual growth that they need and guess what?
12:45 That's not enough, right? What do we do if your kid's really good at gymnastics or soccer? What do you do? My guess is I look around this room. You probably don't need to teach your daughter
12:57 gymnastics. I'm just looking. I'm just it's just a quick I'm just looking. I'm thinking you need to turn them over to the professional. Right? Or maybe it's baseball or it's soccer or whatever it
13:09 is. New music. Maybe you turn them over to the professional. But I want you to understand this that when it comes to religious training and religious teaching in God's word. Yes.
13:21 You need them to show up as much as possible. But I want you to know 2 hours a week's not gonna cut it. I'll say that again, 2 hours a week is not
13:33 going to cut it. If some if some little girl is going to be fantastic in gymnastics, what is the average amount of time they spend at gymnastics every week? Somebody know anybody have a daughter or granddaughter
13:45 that is? A long time. It's how many could can they be top quality go to college 2 hours a week? Okay. If you have a son that is a
13:57 fantastic baseball player and you'd love for him to play at the next level and yeah, can he get it done in 2 hours a week? No. Volleyball, whatever. Do you understand what I'm saying? Some music. It's hours
14:09 a week. It's hours a week. Alright? You look back and you say, man, if I had it to do over again, I would do it differently. So understand, man, you need to make if you have a child or a grandchild and that's part of the
14:20 blessing that's gonna come along, that you need to make sure that your kids are at least in God's house being taught God's word at least 2 hours a week. But what happens
14:32 a lot of times, we see churches optional, but we want our kids to turn out to be good. And so we show up. What is the average? You know, you always track this. What's the average church attendance that they consider a
14:44 regular attendance these days? 1.71 0.7 times a month. The average the the, the attendance of the regular
14:56 attender, it's the 1 they the person says, I'm a church going person, is 1.7 times a month. Now, what does that mean? That we
15:08 take Sundays off a lot, don't we? So we can go hunting or we can go to sports or we can travel or a lot of times now, it's so we can go see our kid get better at
15:19 baseball or volleyball or soccer. Now before you say, pastor, are you bagging on sports? How many of you were here when I was
15:31 raising my kids? I am passionate about sports. And I will tell you, if my son's on a team or my daughters were on a team, we kept score. Do you understand?
15:44 I guarantee when my daughters and sons were 4, they may not have kept score, but I knew who won and so did my kids. No. They didn't keep score on that, but y'all won that game. Alright? And so we need to understand,
15:56 hey, we need to take and apply the same mindset if we're gonna make our child or grandchild or something like that good at gymnastics, baseball, soccer, volleyball, music, whatever
16:08 it is, poetry. We need to take the same mindset that 2 hours a week isn't gonna get it. We also definitely need to take the mindset that
16:19 1.7 times a month isn't going to get it. It isn't going to get it. So let's begin to walk through. Let me give you 5 thoughts from the Shema and let you understand this is
16:31 not just about discipling your kids. It's way more. Here's thought number 1 and I'm gonna show you where your 4 is found in is here's what it says, verse verse 4 tells us, thought number 1 from
16:43 the Shema. You and I have to know our theology. We have to know our theology. Look at what it says in verse 4. He says here O Israel the Lord our
16:55 God the Lord is 1. Hear O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is 1. It starts by knowing your theology. As a matter of fact, if you fast forwardShow more
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