The Blade he served in the late 18th century.
We remember him now as the father of theological
liberalism, and not a wonderful title that you want to carry,
but he carries it. The other was Jonathan Edwards,
the American bastion of theological conservatism.
If you've seen a Great Awakening, you've probably heard
his name. He brought the Great Awakening
with George Whitfield to American soil. 2 Very different
people, but have more in common than is realized.
The lecture brought the similarities between the two for
both men, true religion consisted in the heart.
It had to be in the heart and what they would call the
affections. And so there's there's emotions,
right? Those fleeting things.
If you want to think about emotions from a from a
scriptural standpoint, remember the very people that came before
Jesus throwing their palm branches down saying Hosanna
Hosanna blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord a few
days later said crucify him, crucify him.
We can't trust our emotions, but the the affections is what they
were getting at. True religion consists there,
those deep, enduring inclinations of the soul that
weather all of the emotional ups and downs.
Both men, he said, were responding to the hard logic of
18th century Enlightenment, which was committed to science
and to individualism and to reason.
And they're coming out of that. And they're both part of a
movement that was called Romanticism, which was the world
overreacting to the Enlightenment.
And they're they're leading with sentiment and they're over
prioritizing the feelings. And both emphasized the
importance of having an experience with God and related
to these things was actually what set them apart above all
else. The one difference that set them
worlds apart was. Jonathan Edwards believed that
the affections and the heart arise from knowing truth about
God, knowing doctrine, knowing theology, and believing it
yields the fruit of religious affection, joy and peace and
love of God. And Schleiermacher believe that
the Bible is primarily a record of religious experience.
And he believed that doctrines are a byproduct of religious
affections, meaning that doctrines are produced by
writing out what I feel. And so for him, doctrine
evolves, religion evolves. And so he doesn't have much room
for books like Deuteronomy because there's more evolved
religion. We can go to the New Testament.
There's a higher religion. And so Christian doctrines are
accounts of Christian religious affections set forth in speech.
So for one, affections written down become doctrines.
The other one is you take the doctrines that have been written
down and they lead to your affections.
Who was right is the question. Listen to Deuteronomy 65.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all
your soul, and with all your might.
If there's ever a text that pointed toward the affections
are aimed at the affections of your heart, this is it.
And they're obviously aimed at that.
But the very next verse is Deuteronomy 66.
These commandments that I command to you today shall be on
your heart. And so there you have the proper
order. Moses shows you the order.
It's not your write down your affections.
And then we'll we'll have a list here.
No, he says these commandments that I preached to you today are
to be written on your heart. We love the Lord our God by
writing His commandments onto our heart.
Edwards was right. So regarding the transformation
or the renewal of our heart, the instrument of the heart, renewal
is the word of God. And the agent of a renewed heart
is the Holy Spirit who works through that word.
And the fruit is properly ordered.
Affections, joy and assurance, and namely love.
That's how it works. That's the renewed heart.
And as you come to the book of Deuteronomy, this is the first
place in the Bible that God's people are commanded to love
him. It's demanded of us that we love
God before this. I mean, it talks about God's
love. He shows the steadfast love to
thousands. But we are, we are commanded to
fear God, to have an awe of Him, and to have a respect of him.
And you finally come here. And today God commands for the
first time. You shall love the Lord your
God. And why love?
I'll go back and quote Jonathan Edwards to you.
He says because love is the 1st and the chief of the affections.
It's the fountain of joy. It's the fountain of gratitude
and hatred of sin. And Edward says that love is
what drives everything we do, not the emotion of fear, not the
fleeting passions of pleasure, but the affections of love and
joy that are found in Jesus Christ and in the teachings of
Scripture about him. And open up to Deuteronomy 6.
And I want to read with you this passage, the greatest
commandment, Deuteronomy 6, verses 1 to 9.
Moses says, Now this is the commandment, the statute, and
the rules that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that
you may do them in the land to which you're going over to
possess it. That you may fear the Lord your
God, you and your son, and your son's son, by keeping all his
statutes and his commandments, which I command you all the days
of your life, and that your days may be long.
Here therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may
go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the
Lord, the God of your Father's has promised you, in a land
flowing with milk and honey. Here, O Israel, the Lord our
God, the Lord is 1 And you shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, and with all your soul, with all your might.
And these words that I command to you today shall be on your
heart. You shall teach them diligently
to your children. You shall talk of them when you
sit in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie
down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on
your hand, and you shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on
your gates. The oldest manuscript of the
Bible until just we, we got our Dead Sea Scrolls went all the
way back to the 2nd century BC and this is what we found.
They were, it was called the Nash Papyrus.
I'll spare you all the details, but what was written on it was
this little transition verse that we saw a few weeks ago,
Deuteronomy 445, which says these are the the testimonies
and the statutes and the rules which Moses spoke to the people
when they came out of Egypt. And then it put the 10
commandments on there. And then it was followed by
these words, Deuteronomy 6, four to five.
I say that to tell you this has been a premier verse for the
people of God, if not the premier verse for the people of
God from the very beginning. And when Jesus was asked by a
scribe in Mark 12/29 which commandment is the most
important of all, He didn't hesitate.
And very rarely, if you know Jesus, you know he doesn't
answer questions with answers. Very often people ask him
questions and he answers questions back.
But this is one of those rare times.
They say, what's the greatest commandment?
He doesn't hesitate, but answers directly.
And he says the most commandment, the most important
commandment is this. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our
God, the Lord is 1. And you shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your
mind, and with all your strength.
And the scribe agrees with them and he says you've answered
correctly. O teacher, you've truly said
that he is 1 and there is no other beside him.
And to love him with all the heart and with all the
understanding, with all the strength, and to love one's
neighbor as oneself is much more than all whole burnt offerings
and sacrifices. And then Jesus declaration to
him, he says, you've got it right.
You understand, I desire steadfast love and not
sacrifice. I desire mercy and righteousness
and not sacrifice. And so he tells them, you are
not far from the Kingdom of God. You've understood the most
important verse. And so we're studying a text of
Scripture now and Deuteronomy 6 that our Lord and Savior, by his
own confession, says is the most important commandment in the
Bible. And this is a commandment that
Jewish people have been reading twice a day when they rise up
and when they go to bed for millennia.
And we call it the Shema, which is the Hebrew verb meaning to
hear or to obey. He says it twice and verse 3 and
verse 5. And there's some word play going
on here that to help you remember it, he says hear O
Israel Shema. And then he adds to it the word
keep, which is shemar. And so he says, hear Shema and
keep the word Shemar. And this is a passage of
scripture that's represented the heart of the Old Testament from
the beginning is why commentators say if you
understand Deuteronomy, then you understand the Old Testament
because it's the heart of the Old Testament.
And we have the Talmud, the definitive record of Jewish
traditions instructed Jewish people to this is the first
thing that you were to teach your children when they can
talk. You start here.
And this ought to be the last thing that you confess before
you die. It's that important.
Eugene Merrill It's the expression of the essence of all
God's person and purposes in 16 words of Hebrew text.
And Jesus Christ himself says this is the greatest commandment
in the law. And the reason is because Old
Testament commentators point out that when you confess the Shema
verses 4 to 5, when you commence the, when you confess this, you
are swearing allegiance to Yahweh, You are yoking yourself.
That's the, the language that they use.
You're yoking yourself to the Kingdom of God.
You're swearing allegiance to the Kingdom of God and it's King
Jesus Christ and Jesus commands all would be followers.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.
We're yoking ourself to the Kingdom by reading and
confessing these verses. You're yoking yourself, you're
binding yourself, you're bonding yourself, swearing allegiance to
God's Kingdom. So the emphasis of Deuteronomy 6
is loving the Lord and keeping his commandments.
And you're soon going to see that's the same thing, right?
This is two sides of the same coin.
To love the Lord is to follow his commandments, which is why
there's a premium on these verses of knowing the word,
writing it on the tablet of your heart, and then doing the word,
not being a forgetful here. And I've I've see in these
verses, these 9 verses, what kind of binds them all together,
at least in my mind's eye is this language of totality.
It's all you see in verses one to three.
It's all of his statutes and all of his rules for all the people
of Israel for all of life. Verses 1 to 3 is all his
statutes. Verses 4 to 5 is this, it's
giving all of yourself. Verses 6 to 9, all of life.
Say another way, it's, it's all his statutes.
You can see verse 2, he says by keeping all his statutes and
commandments all the days of your life.
The second he says it's all of yourself.
Verse 5, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and all your mind and all your strength.
And then you come to the Third Point.
He says it's for all of life, which is why he says, I want you
to bind this on your hand. As a matter of fact, ride it on
the doorposts of your house and put it on your gates.
You know what's the location of our obedience to God and his
covenant. It's it's everything.
It's it's all of life. And so I want to I want to look
at these three things. All his statutes, all of
yourself, all of life, beginning in verses one to three.
Read it with me again, and all his statutes, When you see the
word all you can say it with me, he says.
Now this is the commandment, the statutes, and the rules that the
Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them
in the land to which you are going over to possess it.
That you may fear the Lord your God, you and your Son, and your
Son's Son, by keeping all you say it with me, all His statutes
and His command, which I command you all the days of your life,
and that your days may be long. Here therefore, Shema, O Israel,
and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, that
you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your Father's
has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
I think part of the significance of this comes from the fact that
the expectation of Israel, when he's given them this law is that
they will do it and it will go well for them.
The expectation is that they're going to default to obedience.
He's not giving them this law. And he's like, hey, look, I know
this is really hard, and you're probably not going to keep it.
You know, he's giving you the law and he's saying this is not
too hard for you, right? These commandments are for you.
The assumption is that you're going to be blessed.
It's the same way for the children that are in your
household. There's an, there's not an
expectation of discipline. We give the household roles.
We set expectations because we expect our children to follow
them, that they will there will be peace and harmony and that
there will be blessing. And the same is true of our
Heavenly Father. He gives these commands
expecting that it's going to go well.
And so you'll see in verses 1 to 9, there's all these verbs that
Moses is giving and he's expecting us to follow them and
to do them. And so you say just following
through as, as we read through the script, he says, I expect
you to keep the commandments, Shamar.
I expect you to do them. And then he says, and I expect
you to teach them. This is for all the people.
There's a, there's an outlet for each of you to teach the
commandments. My favorite quote from erman
Vitius. I know he's your favorite Dutch
for the Reformation theologian. I know you guys well.
He's mine too. When you read him, he says no
one teaches well unless he first learns well, and no one learns
well unless he learns in order to teach, and both learning and
teaching are vain and unprofitable unless they're
accompanied by practice. What's he saying?
You have to to learn in order to teach or you're never going to
learn. The best teachers are those who
learn in order to teach. And you're a worthless teacher.
You're an ineffective teacher if you're not putting it in to
practice. That's what he's saying here.
Keep the law, keep the commandments, do the
commandments, teach them, talk about them, bind them on your
hands and write them. That's the expectation.
And when you do these things, you will be blessed.
When you swear allegiance and you follow through, verse 2, you
will live long in the land. Verse 3, it will go well with
you. So he's reminding them and we,
this is a broad statement, general statement, that
obedience to the covenant is promised broadly with blessing.
Otherwise, if you're not following the covenant, then
there's going to be the consequences due to sin and
there's going to be the discipline of the Lord and
there's going to be his chastising and there's going to
be refinement. And these are painful
experiences. But the expectation of God and
of Moses here is he says, I'm trying to spare you of all that.
I'm trying to give you blessing. I'm inviting you, he says, into
the land that's flowing with milk and honey.
So he's going to, we're going to take all of his statutes, all of
his law. And then he addresses in verse
2, he's addressing the people of God as a whole.
So it's all of the statues of God, all of the people of God.
And as you've already confessed yourself, for all the days of
their life, there's nowhere where obedience, there's no
location where obedience is not commanded, where allegiance is
not demanded. And so it's all the commandments
for all the people for all the time on earth.
It's all of yourself poured out for him.
Paul takes passages like this. He puts it in the metaphor of
you are to be a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God,
which is your spiritual worship. It is your Christian service.
He says it's pouring yourself out as a drink offering, as he
says in in second Timothy, even as I'm being poured out as a
drink offering on the sacrificial offering of your
faith. It's a pouring yourself out.
It's a it's a whole life experience.
It's laying down your life all the days of your life.
That's why when the Bible tells you to do something, the one,
the, the command that comes to mind is from Doug Melton in the
marriage retreat. If you remember, he was right
here. What's the first thing he said,
the most important thing that you were to do with your spouse?
Anybody remember #1 pray. We're supposed to pray with our
spouse. What if we don't feel like it?
What if we had a bad day? What if we just got in a big
fight? And you say, I don't know,
husband, I don't want to pray with my wife.
I don't feel like praying with my wife.
That's where verses like this are so significant because we
have to recognize in this moment, I am not the Lord of my
life. Aaron is not the Lord of Aaron's
life. Jesus Christ is the Lord of my
life. And he said I'm supposed to pray
with my wife. And so in that moment, I have to
swallow my pride. And what do I do?
I pray with my wife. Same wives to your husband's or
your family's. I don't want to.
My kids are acting foolish. I don't want to pray for my
kids. I don't want to put them to bed.
I'm going to do melatonin. I'm going to go take a bath.
No, scripture says you are not the Lord of your life.
Jesus Christ is the Lord of your life.
It's all of your life and every sphere.
And so you pray for your family and you serve your family and
your children. Moses goes on past this.
He continues this kind of all-encompassing comprehensive
language. He continues into verse 4 to 5
as he says we must apply all of ourselves to this covenant
second point. All of yourself read with me
this incredibly famous passage of Scripture in Deuteronomy 6,
four to five hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is 1.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all
your soul, and with all your might.
This is the the passage of scripture that we call the
Shema. It's these verses specifically
and it's it's always been read in one of two ways.
All of you will have a footnote in your Bible, a little note
that says that there's kind of some some different readings
that you can have here. Regardless of the reading, it's
it's allegiance to Yahweh is the point.
The most common readings are this one.
Number one would be the Lord our God.
The Lord is 1. Emphasizing of course, the the
oneness, the unity of God over and against all of the
polytheistic religions of the ancient Near East.
No, no Baal follower could make the confession.
Baal is 1. There's so many gods that would
they would give the title Bail to.
It would make no sense to say that Bail is 1.
And the second common alternative is that the Lord our
God, The Lord alone is God, emphasizing his uniqueness and
hit the exclusive nature. He is the only God in a world of
counterfeit gods. And so in light of the first
commandment, we are to have no other gods beside him.
That would be the emphasis and you can have your take on it.
I read it as the Lord our God. The Lord alone is God flowing
naturally out of that first commandment that says you shall
have no other gods besides me. Meaning Yahweh alone is God and
he doesn't compete for glory. This is what the scribe says.
I think it he kind of interprets that when when Jesus says this
verse, the scribe says, right, you are right.
There is no other God beside him.
And that's what Deuteronomy 435 says Yahweh alone is God.
The Lord is God. There is no other beside him.
Deuteronomy 439 the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth
beneath. There is no other.
Isaiah 4521 says it beautifully. There is no God besides me, a
righteous God and a savior. There is none beside me.
This is a verse that is demanding you, yoking yourself
to the the the Kingdom of God. It's your swearing allegiance
and it's, it's important to see that in Mark 12/29 when, when
Jesus uses this, it's recorded in Mark at the absolute climax
of all of his teaching in the capital city of Jerusalem.
And I, I think Carson and Beale, their commentary kind of walk us
through this, this theme of loyalty and allegiance.
And they show how we get to this climax.
And they begin in Mark 834 to 35 as Jesus is teaching, you can
hear the radical nature of his teaching.
He starts by saying you have to lay down your life Contra or
evangelism strategies. Jesus makes it hard to believe
and he says you have to take up your cross every day and follow
me. That's what loyalty is going to
demand of you. Set your alarm, you wake up,
confess me as Lord, take up your cross and follow me.
Mark 942 to 48. Then he says you have to deny
yourself. He says you're human fleshly
inclinations. He says if your right hand
causes you to sin, what are you supposed to do?
Cut it off? You know, I actually cut it off.
It's hyperbole. He says you need to take your
sin seriously and if your right eye causes you to sin, what do
you do? You pluck it out because it's
better to go into heaven missing 1 member than to go into hell
with all of your members. He's saying take sin extremely
seriously. He continues to mark 1017 to 21.
And here he says you're going to need to lay down your material
goods and don't make an idol of those.
It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than
for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of heaven.
And he continues to build. And then he comes.
Then comes Mark 12/29. You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind
and all your strength. And he just takes it all to the
pinnacle. And he says it's going to cost
you everything, all of your resources, all of your life.
Total focus. This is what it means when we
say that salvation is a narrow path.
It's a it's a narrow gate because we enter through Jesus
Christ who is the door, and it's a narrow path and we cannot go.
That's what he said last week in our passage in Deuteronomy 5.
You can't go to the left or to the right.
We have to stay on the path of righteousness and keep our gaze
focused on Jesus Christ. It's a giving of your whole self
to every commandment at the expense of yourself for the
glory of God and Jesus Christ. And to yoke yourself to the
Kingdom of God means you look at your own affections and there
are no competitive affections. You look at the goals of your
own heart and there are no competing goals.
When I think about this in my own mind comes used to drive for
a living before like 4 lifetimes ago and did non-emergency
medical transportation and you meet some very interesting
people in that and some would confess to be Christians.
And there was this one lady who was addicted to drugs, and
there's a very stark image in my mind of trying to follow an idol
while you follow Jesus Christ. Her prayer, I'll say it in her
own words. She said, I pray every day that
God will help me find a way to keep smoking crack and still
keep my baby. And you say, how foolish to
think that you can follow after the things of the world and
follow after idols and then expect the blessing of God and
the things that he's promised. And yet we are so foolish.
We are that foolish when we try to serve God and mammon.
We try to serve God while we serve all of these other
functional gods in our lives. And we expect blessing.
And Jesus says no. That's what this text is saying.
He demands allegiance. He doesn't share his glory with
another. The Lord our God.
The Lord alone is God. What's the greatest commandment
according to our Savior? You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your
might. And he, he says with all your
mind and with all your strength. That's how Jesus reads it.
And he's not cataloging, you know, the different aspects of a
person where you've got a mind and you've got a soul and you've
got, it's not what he's doing, it's rhetorical force,
rhetorical emphasis showing Christianity is going to demand
everything of you. And so he begins with the heart.
And you go back to the ancient world and you think of heart.
We kind of have heart and mind backwards of them.
The heart for them was the intellect.
Your heart is your mind. Your heart is your will.
It's where you make decisions. David says in Psalm 1/19/11.
I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin
against you. And he moves on and he says it's
the soul, which is your inner person.
The soul is you as you know yourself to be.
And he says with all of your strength, which is your
muchness, literally your very variness, what does he mean by
that? He's saying your full
capacities, your natural abilities, even your resources.
You might say your time, your treasure, and your talents.
What does he demand of you? All of your might.
You are everything. Your time, your treasure, your
talents. The Shema teaches you to love
exceedingly. The Shema asks you to love
unreservedly. We sometimes use death as kind
of an intensifier, right? I'm bored to death.
You can apply that here It's it's it's the greatest love.
We love him to death, literally and metaphorically.
Lord, I love you to death and what is love and scripture
accept obedience to God's commandments.
Driver, the infamous commentator, says that when God
expresses his love for mankind, it's expressed in benevolent
acts. What does that mean?
John 316 For God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him will have
everlasting life. He says in Deuteronomy, we're
going to come to it in just a few moments that God loves the
sojourner and it never stops there, giving him food and
clothing. There's no such thing as loving
that doesn't follow with loving actions.
If you love someone, you move. And so it's Israel's duty to
love. God is inseparable from actions.
It's not just emotion of the heart.
Love is not an emotion at all. Love is a commitment and it
manifests itself in obedience to God's commands.
So to love someone means also to act lovingly.
It's not works righteousness. It's love that shows itself in
life and ministry and devotion. Last week God said in
Deuteronomy 510 he shows his steadfast love to thousands who
love him and who keep his commandments.
And if you want this picture, Jesus had much to say about
this. You'll be This list is going to
exhaust you. Listen to Jesus in the upper
room what he says to his disciples.
John 1415 If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 1421
Whoever has my commandments and keep them, keeps them.
He it is who loves me. 1423 If anyone loves me, he will keep my
word. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my word. 1510
If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I
have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his
love. John 1514 You are my friends if
you do what I command you. So he's not saying obedience is
the cause of love, and he's not saying obedience is separate
from love. He's saying it's the necessary
expression and evidence of genuine love.
And so to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our
soul and all our strength means we have to internalize the Word.
We have to know it so that we can fulfill it.
We have to know it in order that we do it.
So we've said before last week, we'll say it again this week,
You have to take it. God has written His law on stone
tablets. It's your responsibility now to
take the stone tablet and to write that law on your heart.
And he's written it onto the pages of the Scriptures, and
it's all your responsibility to take that.
Proverbs 3 says this. Write it on the tablet of your
heart so that you can know it. You know His will and you do it.
Remember the word play that comes here, Shema.
Hear the word shemar. Keep the word, internalize it,
and do it. Moses has some metaphors.
Not the metaphor I would use, but a metaphor nonetheless.
Deuteronomy 10/16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your
heart, and no longer be stubborn.
Internal internalizing of the word.
Deuteronomy 30 verse 6. And the Lord your God will
circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that
you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all
your soul and that you may live. You go back to the the rabbinic
teachings was reading some of that this week and some of these
essays that Doctor Mario sent me as I'm trying to wrap my head
around this Shema passage. And they emphasized kind of two
ways that you can gain obedience.
And they said those two ways are fear or love.
And you can, you can use those. You can get obedience as a
parent, as a landlord, as a employer through fear.
You can, you can do that, but the same rabbi said that love is
more durable than fear. What do they mean by that?
You can consider in your own household, do you want children
that obey because they're afraid of you, because they're afraid
of how you're going to react, because they're afraid of what
you're going to do, because they're afraid of the
consequences? Or do you want children that
obey you and are obedient to you because they love you and
because you are for them? And you can think about as an as
an employer, do you want employees that obey you because
they fear you and they're afraid of how you're going to react and
the consequences of what they do?
Or do you want employees that that love you because they know
that you love them? The answer is clear.
Love is more durable than fear. Fear is here.
It's in verse 2. You can go back and see it we we
still have this respect and this awe of God.
He says that you may fear the Lord your God by keeping all his
statutes in command, but this fear is is a respect.
You go to the the old Baptist, John Gill, He said this isn't a
a slavish fear where we're afraid of what God's going to do
and these consequences. He's just delivered them out of
that. He just delivered them from
Egypt, which was they were afraid of their taskmaster.
This is not God as a taskmaster. This is a filial fear.
He says there there's a respect of God as their father, but he
says that that relationship is characterized primarily by love.
That's the the point of this John 316.
The emphasis is love, for God so loved the world that he gave his
only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him will
not perish, but have everlasting life.
That's John 316 first, John 316 By this we know love, that He
laid down his life for us. That's how Israel knew the love
of God, because he redeemed them from their slavery.
He heard them, He delivered them.
Now he gives them the law as he swears himself to them, as they
swear themselves to him. The nature of the relationship
and the covenant is love. Obedience is an outgrowth of
love. And then finally, more than more
than all of the statutes, more than all of yourself, Moses
takes us to this Third Point. He continues this
all-encompassing language by expressing that it is for all of
life. Let's read verses 6 to 9 one
more time. And these words that I command
to you today shall be on your heart.
You shall teach them. Here's the word again,
diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you
sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down,
and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on
your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
You should write them on the doorposts of your house and on
your gates. Just bind them on your house.
Teach them diligently to your children.
Talk about them when you sit in the house, when you walk by the
way, when you lie down, when you rise.
What's he saying with all of this?
This is always the Word of God. His covenant is always to be on
your mind and the most, the most mature Christians that I know,
and I know this is true for you too, because out of the
abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
The most mature Christians I know, when you talk to them,
you're going to talk about the Bible.
It doesn't matter what the context is.
It doesn't matter what you came to talk about.
They're going to take the word. They're going to apply it
because they love it. They know it.
That's why they reached maturity.
And it's not debates and conflict about the less known
parts of the Scriptures or the less clear parts of the
Scriptures. It's taking the word of God and
applying it to our circumstances.
That's what mature Christians do.
His word is for all spheres of life.
And you can look at how he begins with the word is for you
as an individual and it slowly out pours into society.
Look at verse 8. He says you were to bind it on
your hands. This means the word of God is
for you as an individual. And then he extends out into
verse 9. He says and you shall write them
on the doorpost of your house, meaning that the word of God is
is for your family. This is meant for you as a
family. And then he goes on and it says
and on your gates and the the Jews have no gates on their
houses at this time. It's very rare.
This is the gates of business and society.
This is like Trafalgar Square is for London.
It's the heart of the city. It's the Civic Center.
So is the gate. He's saying it it out pours.
What's the location of obedience for you as a Christian?
The answer is yes. There is nowhere that this, this
law does not touch. What's the location of your
obedience? It is your daily rhythm.
It's your daily habits. It's all of life, all of the
context. You're applying the word of God.
And he says as you're going, you teach the word diligently and
you talk about it constantly and you write it down and you teach
it to your family. And what does it mean to to keep
them and do them? I don't think he would ask if it
was easy, if this was something that was just going to come
naturally. We never have any problems.
It's it's difficult to keep the word of God and it means doing
it even when you don't feel like it.
It's doing it when it's hard. It's you're saying I'm not the
Lord of my life. You are the Lord of my life.
And you show with your action that you believe the words
nevertheless not my will, but yours be done.
What does it mean? Teach them means, teach the
culture, teach your children, teach your grandchildren.
The emphasis in in Deuteronomy 5 last week was on the generation
that came before where he rehearses the 10 commandments as
he's giving it to the next generation.
And our text today is is forward directing.
The rest of the book is going to be forward directing as he's
saying now this is for you as you enter into the promised land
and for your children. And Deuteronomy 6 says covenant
succession is too important to be left to chance.
So we teach our children so that they can take it.
It's not a, it's not a game. We teach them diligently.
If your kids are in the the children's area at this church,
they're going to get the Bible three times.
They're going to go through the entire Bible three times before
they hit youth. And then Chris is going to teach
him about discipleship and he's going to bring systematic
theology in. And if these kids depart from
it, we've taught them the way to go.
We, we're not leaving this to chance.
And he says just to talk about it, it's supposed to always be
coming out of your mind and always be coming into
conversation. And then he says, bind them to
yourself. Write it on your hands, put it
on your mirror, on verses, on T-shirts, on bracelets, on
necklaces. The oldest document we have of
the Old Testament, the most the oldest manuscript we have of the
Bible period actually doesn't technically qualify as a
manuscript because it was an amulet there was to be worn
around the neck. And the oldest Bible manuscript
we have was somebody writing the words of number six on their on
a little piece of paper that they wore around their neck.
It's that may the Lord bless you and keep you, turn his face to
cup, shine upon you, be gracious to you, give you peace.
They took it and they bound it. That's what that was for.
So we write them. Proverbs 3 three.
Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you.
Bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your
heart, so that you will find favor and good success in the
sight of God and men. And then lastly, it says you
write them. Remember kings, when they came
to succession on the throne, had to write the entire law.
This was Deuteronomy 1718 to 20. When he sits on the throne of
his Kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this
law, and it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the
days of his life. It's not just for kings.
It's it's for us. We write it.
And as you write it, and as you journal the word, you take it
from the pages of the Bible and you write it onto your own
heart. So what's the Shema teaching?
It is the greatest commandment in the Bible.
It's this passage is teaching complete your complete
allegiance to Yahweh, and it's teaching that that relationship
with you and God is characterized first by love.
As we've already sang the hymn said summer summarizes this
whole message. Love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.
So make the word and your obedience to it part of your
daily rhythm. Remember this all of life, when
you lie down, when you get up, when you walk along the road,
all the days of your life, keep it.
And it's all the law, verse 2, all of the rules and all the
commandments. And it's all of yourself, all of
your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, all of your
strength, your time, your treasure, your talents, and in
all contexts, personally, in your heart and that internal
monologue. And he goes on to say and, and
personally and in your household and in your society.
And the ask of you is that you yoke yourself to the Kingdom of
God. And the ask is that you confess
his lordship and you remove all rivals from him, because His
glory He will not share with another.
And you bind yourself to Him in life and in death, and you give
allegiance of yourself totally to him with that.
Let's pray for the strength to do that.
Lord, we believe, help our unbelief.
Lord, increase our faith, increase our love, increase our
knowledge. Lord, we want to do this.
We've sworn allegiance to you. And Lord, we know we constantly
fall short. If there is any in the room who
do not know Jesus as Lord and Savior, I pray that they will
remember that the day is coming where every knee will bow and
every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, whether out of love and
obedience or because He makes them.
But I pray that now they would see you.
You'd open their eyes to the beauty of the gospel, that it's
you first loved us, that you gave yourself for us.
I pray that they would turn in their hearts and they would
swear allegiance to you so that it may go well with them.
They would experience peace and joy and blessing and assurance
for those who are trying to swear.
They've sworn allegiance to you, but they're, they're being held
back, Lord, by some sins, some rival.
Lord, help us to remember now your power that you've given us
the Holy Spirit, that you've given us all things for life and
godliness. You've given us a local church
that can keep us accountable and keep us believing and keep us on
the path so that we don't go to the right or to the left.
And I pray that they would come and confess that sin to somebody
so that we can help them, that they would turn and follow you
and you alone. And Lord, I pray for those who
are who are keeping their heart under control as so far as they
are able, they're free from from major idols in their life, that
they would strengthen the others, that you would keep them
on the path that they would experience this blessing.
God, we thank you that your word is for all of us.
We submit to it. Lord help us in Christ's name,
Amen. Thanks for listening.
To learn more about Heritage Church or if you'd like to
respond to this sermon, visit our website at
www.heritageshawnee.org.