[0:00] Okay, it is good to see each and every one of you, and I am thankful to have this opportunity to gather with you. Hope that everyone is doing okay, hope your week has been off to a pretty good start, and hope the Lord has blessed you throughout this week.
[0:20] Let's open up with a word of prayer, and then we'll just get right into the word together, so let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much just for allowing us to gather together. Lord, we thank you for the great privilege of fellowship.
[0:34] We thank you for an opportunity of coming midweek and being renewed. Lord, we pray now as we come to the time where we open up your word, Lord, that we would be encouraged by it.
[0:46] We would be shaped and molded by your word. We pray that your word would penetrate our hearts and minds and draw us closer to you, Lord. It would lead us to become more like you in the world in which you've put us, and Lord, that we would understand you in a greater way.
[1:01] Lord, we pray for those working with children in the back. I pray your hand rests upon them. We pray for our teenagers and leaders who are out of pocket this evening. We pray you keep your hand upon them. They have a great time together.
[1:12] Lord, we just ask that in all things that you would be glorified and honored through all that takes place here. Lord, in all that takes place in connection with this church, we pray that it would be pleasing in your sight.
[1:23] We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, go with me to the book of Deuteronomy. We're in the book of Deuteronomy, just making our way through the Old Testament. So we're in Deuteronomy chapter 6 is where we are at this evening.
[1:38] We're just continuing to make our way through on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights, and this is where we are at. We'll get to a very important passage, at least in the Jewish realm of thought, here in just a little bit in our text tonight.
[1:53] So we're going to be in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 1 through 9. You know, I love the Old Testament. I love getting into it, and I love our study in it, and just really have been encouraged as we can get into the Old Testament, and we see those truths that are so real, those foundational elements that are laid out for us in the historical writings and in the other portions of the Old Testament that have so much application throughout it all.
[2:18] Many of you know, or some of you know, this week, actually, I started college classes again. I was talking to my brother earlier about that, and I am taking Old Testament 2, and I'm taking it to Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Spurgeon College in Kansas City, taking it online.
[2:36] But for one, I wasn't quite ready to start back into classwork, and two, I remember the last time I was taking school, I wasn't driving a bus, and I didn't have all those things going on. But it's okay. But I am studying Psalms, Proverbs, and all the prophets.
[2:50] And I was sharing with my brother, I said, Monday morning, I cut it on, because it wasn't ready to cut on until Monday morning. And my professor, who teaches at Moody Bible Seminary, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, LSU, Colorado University, and a couple of other colleges in there, he said, okay, this week, we're going to go on Isaiah, read 115 pages in this book, read the book of Isaiah quickly, just skim through it, go through it quick, write a response to this chapter, and then give me a two-page essay to this chapter, and it'll be due by Thursday, okay?
[3:20] And that was it. I was like, huh, thanks. And I was like, that sounds great. So that's where my mind's kind of been smoking, but I've learned a lot already, and I wish I would have taken him for Old Testament I, because I've already had that class, but I was sharing with someone earlier, I said, you know, as far as essays, writing essays go, I don't mind that, I've written a lot.
[3:43] Then I got to looking him up. He, one of his jobs, along with being a professor, is he proofreads books for Moody Publishing and Baker House books, and so I'm like, nothing I write is going to be good for this guy.
[3:58] I have too much Tennessean in me, so pray for your pastor, right? As he gets ready and does this stuff, I'm like, it's going to be great. But he shared a message that he had preached with us on the importance of preaching through the Old Testament, and he wanted us to read it, and I read it, and he just reiterated again some of the things that we've seen, right?
[4:20] The things that we've seen, how the foundational elements of the faith really are found in that Old Testament. It's not some books, some gathering and grouping of books that we just dismiss as things that did happen.
[4:31] They reveal to us who God is. They reveal to us the character and the nature of God. They reveal to us who our Savior is, right? They reveal all these wonderful things to us, and we see it tonight, even in our own passage, in Deuteronomy chapter 6.
[4:44] Deuteronomy 6, verses 1 through 9, will be our text this evening, and then we'll just move forward from there, so let's read it together. It says,
[5:50] Deuteronomy 6, verses 1 through 9. I want us to see this evening the encouragement here by Moses. If you remember, Moses is delivering the message right before the nation of Israel goes into the Promised Land.
[6:03] So this is his final message. Really, the book of Deuteronomy is a recorded sermon of Moses to the people of Israel, really on the banks of the Jordan River. They're about to take possession. Some 40 years prior to this, God has used Moses to deliver the nation of Israel out of Egyptian slavery.
[6:19] He has called them out of Egypt in a miraculous, wondrous event, and he has parted the Red Sea, and he's brought them through, and he's brought them through that wilderness. He brought them to Mount Sinai, had a meeting with them there, entered into a covenant, which is all these Ten Commandments and everything, with the nation of Israel.
[6:35] He said, I will be your God, and you will be my people if you obey me and you follow me, and you do everything that I command you to do, and he sets up this whole order of what it looks like to live in the presence of a holy God, and then he takes the people through the wilderness, and they get to the edge of the Promised Land, this very place that God had promised Abram so many years prior to this, 400 plus years prior to this, God had said, this land will be your descendants.
[7:00] God's getting ready to give it to them. He says, okay, go take and possess it, and they're like, ah, no, we don't know. We want to look it over first. By the way, you know, we've said this, but it bears repeating. We don't ever need to stop and pause and look over what God is telling us he's going to give us, right?
[7:12] Because whatever he gives us is good. It's going to be the best. It's going to be exactly what we need. They said, well, let's go see. And you remember, they got terrified because of the walled cities and the fortified cities and the giants living in the land, and they rebelled.
[7:26] They did not go and take possession of what God told them to do. So God was patient. 38 more years, they wander around the wilderness, and that whole generation dies. That generation who knew what God had done in Egypt, that generation who knew what it was like to be a slave, that generation who knew what it was like to be freed and to be ransomed from that slavery, the generation who knew these things yet failed to go in.
[7:50] But the younger generation, the one they were scared of, said, all our children are going to die and our wives are going to die. That younger generation now is older, and they're getting ready to take possession of the land. They won't send spies in this time.
[8:01] They'll just go across in one company, right? They won't have to consider if what God has given them the good. They know that it is. They know they can be victorious. They've already defeated.
[8:11] They've went another direction. They're on the eastern side of the Jordan River. So if you're looking at a map, the Mediterranean Sea is over here. Egypt's down here. They went around, and then you have the nation of Israel over here in this Transjordan area.
[8:26] They're over there, eastern side of the Jordan River, and they're sitting there in a plain of Moab where they've already defeated two kings, Sihon and Og. Og was a giant. Remember how they said, well, we're going to be slain by the giants.
[8:39] Well, God defeats this giant in front of them, literally. And they're getting ready to go in. So they're kind of on this political, military high. Now, we know there's moral failure there because they fell.
[8:50] They commit adultery with the prophet Baal, and God slays 24,000 of them in one day. They die. So there's this rebuking, but they also know God can deliver them.
[9:03] God can give them that land, and they've been corrected, and they're ready to go into the promised land. But before they go, Moses preaches this sermon, and he tells us in Deuteronomy 1 that he is expounding the law.
[9:16] Now, to expound is to make clear. He's going to make clear what God expects of them. By the way, this is one of the things that I love about the God we serve. We don't serve a God of confusion.
[9:29] We don't serve a God of hope so, maybe so, think so. We serve a God who sets forward very clearly his expectations for us. And that's gracious.
[9:40] And that's merciful. Now, those expectations are so high and so above us and beyond us. Sometimes they scare us. But have you ever thought what it would be like in many faiths or religions where they don't know if they're pleasing God?
[9:56] They don't know if they're living to the extent they hope they are doing what God wants them to do? We serve a God who's very clear. And he has Moses deliver this message.
[10:08] And Moses has looked back. Now, one of the things that we have found that is unique to the book of Deuteronomy, Moses doesn't go back to Egypt. He goes back to Mount Sinai. Right? Because these aren't slaves.
[10:18] These are God's people. Which shows us we should never lose our identity of who we are. Once we have been redeemed and set free. Let's just go ahead and proclaim this here.
[10:29] Right? Once we have accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior. And he has redeemed us from slavery. Which, by the way, the New Testament tells us that we either serve one of two masters. Either we serve Jesus or we serve Satan.
[10:42] Everyone's a slave of something. Either we're a slave of Christ. That word is used, doulos, which means slave. Okay? In the New Testament, we're a slave of Christ or we're a slave of Satan. No one serves himself. So when we are freed from slavery to Satan, then we are no longer what we used to be.
[10:58] We're in a new position. Right? We're in the covenant relationship. So we don't have to go back to referring to ourselves as we were because our stop, spiritually speaking, is Mount Sinai. We're in relationship.
[11:09] Not the law, but it's the Calvary. It's the cross. Okay? We're in a new position. And this is what Moses does. And he's reminding them of the commandments that God gave. Of the expectations.
[11:19] And he does that in Deuteronomy chapter 5, which is where we get the word Deuteronomy. It literally means second law. And the second telling of the Ten Commandments is recorded for us in Deuteronomy chapter 5. Just ten great sayings.
[11:33] And we stand amazed at that. I know a lot of this is repetitive, but it's worth repeating. It only took God ten great sayings to set a standard so high no man can live up to it. Okay?
[11:43] By the time Jesus was born in that region of Jerusalem and around it, the Pharisees had the Mishnah, which was the oral law.
[11:55] And the oral law contained over 634 laws and regulations. So what took God ten things to say to set a standard so high a man tried to break it down into 634 rules and regulations?
[12:08] It only takes God ten. Right? Ten great sayings and the standard's too high. And the command is this is what God expects. This is how you shape society.
[12:20] This is how you live. And the question is, well, how are we going to do that? Well, now the transition into Deuteronomy chapter 6, which is where we're at tonight, is going to carry on into chapter 7 as well.
[12:30] But I want you to see tonight, they are called to live with loving obedience. To live with loving obedience. Because the reality is, is we don't obey by willing it.
[12:46] We don't will ourselves to obey. Maybe you've experienced this. I know I have. In my pre-Christ days and even now, accepting Christ. Well, I'm going to determine.
[12:57] I'm going to do exactly what God wants me to do. I'm just going to get my life right. And I'm going to do this. And I'm going to clean things up. And I'm going to. Problem with that, there's a whole lot of I'm. Right? And I always fail.
[13:09] Well, maybe you're better than me, but I always fail. I can't will myself to obedience. And when Christ has called us to follow him, we don't will ourselves to that. We don't make this.
[13:19] Well, I'm going to make a mental decision that I'm going to do it right this time. Because I will always get in the way. The correct response is to lovingly obey. That is to obey out of love.
[13:31] A response to all that he has done. A response in our area on this side of the cross and the empty tomb, we would say. That our obedience is not a decision, but rather a response.
[13:43] We respond to how Christ has loved us and the price he gave for us. And to death he died in our place. That our obedience is a response to that which he has already done.
[13:55] It is not to gain the favor of. But it is to, if we can't even claim to do it. At least try to repay, though we never can. Or to respond to what we experience in his acceptance and his love and in his forgiveness and his mercy.
[14:12] We need to understand. I think it was. I'm just totally going blank on the name. But one commentator made the great statement.
[14:22] That the land was gained by covenant. It was maintained by obedience. That is, God was giving them the land freely.
[14:34] They only enjoyed what God gave them by living in obedience. They didn't earn it because they obeyed. They enjoyed it. In the Christian life, we are given forgiveness and salvation.
[14:46] These things are freely given, right? We only enjoy them when we live a life of loving obedience. We only enjoy them. It was Wiersbe, by the way. That's who said that.
[14:56] I knew it would come to me in just a minute. We only enjoy them as we live lives of obedience. We are freely given the gifts in Christ which we enjoy by living in absolute loving obedience to what he's called us to.
[15:10] And I want you to see three things here that apply, especially to what Moses is commanding because he's commanding this standard that we will see man will fail. I understand that. We get that. But we understand God also commissioned it.
[15:21] So number one, we see the context of their obedience. That is, where and when and how they were called to obey. The context. Because every time God calls his people to obey, God always calls his people to obey in a context or in a time and space history location, right?
[15:39] Obedience is not just some pie in the sky. It's out there. We'll do it somewhere. He calls them to live in a loving, obedient relationship somewhere. And it's the purpose that we understand.
[15:50] Why did God choose Abram out of the land of the earth, the Chaldeans? Is it because God was bored? No. Again, maintaining this biblical purpose, right? God didn't call Abram out of the land of the earth, the Chaldeans, and say, I'm going to make the nation of Israel out of you and change your name to Abraham and Sarah, your wife.
[16:04] Her name's going to be Sarah. And you're going to have a whole bunch of children because God needed something to do. That's not why God did that, right? He did that because he was setting them apart. And he also didn't do it so that he could call them to some desolate, isolated region of the world.
[16:18] And God could have this group of people over here and leave everybody else over there. Same reason that when God chose Noah, where did Noah build the ark? Did Noah build the ark where nobody else could see it? No, for 120 years, Noah built an ark and was made fun of and mocked.
[16:32] God called Noah, I mean, by the way, where are you going to build a ship that big and nobody sees it? God called Noah to build an ark in front of everybody. God chose Abraham and made a nation out of him to live it out in front of everybody.
[16:44] Here we see the context of their obedience. God has a habit, I don't know if you've figured this out yet or not, of putting his people on display. Because the desire of God, we've said this before, is that people would notice them and be drawn to him.
[17:01] Right? He reveals himself through his people. Moses says, now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments. This is what God expects, which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you.
[17:14] Why? That you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it. He doesn't say these are the things you're just supposed to do out here in the wilderness. You know, when nobody else is around or at the base of Mount Sinai, when you're really in the Shekinah glory presence of God and it's everything cool there.
[17:30] Or when you're isolated, wandering around and nobody bothers you. He says, you are to do them in the land you are going to possess. Now let's keep in mind everything that's on the other side of that Jordan.
[17:43] There's all the ites. The Moabites, the Cushites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Canaanites. And there's every one of their foreign gods too.
[17:54] A long list of gods. A long list of idolatrous worship, of the way they behave, fertility gods, rain gods, harvest gods, gods if you want the sunshine to shine.
[18:10] I mean, there's a God for everything. Literally, what he is saying, God is giving you these things to do over there. Where it's going to be harder.
[18:21] Where you're going to be tempted. Because in the wilderness when nobody else is around, there's no temptation, right? In the wilderness, you're the only people hanging out there, there's no temptation. In the wilderness or at the base of Mount Sinai and you're literally the only people there.
[18:34] It's hard to be tempted or to be drawn away or to be confronted with idolatrous worship that causes you to question the reality of what you believe. What he says is, the obedience God is calling you to is he's calling you to live out your loving obedience over there where you stand out like a sore thumb.
[18:51] Over there where people are going to notice you and look at you and watch you and think you're nuts and mock you and tempt you.
[19:03] The things God is commanding you to do, the context he wants you to do it in is where you don't fit in. Let's fast forward that to the church age.
[19:14] God hasn't called us to act like the church just when we get together. Right? He hasn't called us to have sweet fellowship with one another and to have a spirit of gentleness and joy and a peace that passes understanding only in the context or the confines of this wall because it's pretty easy in here.
[19:32] Right? It's pretty easy in here. At least it's supposed to be. It's not in some churches, I understand that, where churches are at war with one another and that's something, that's a whole other matter of prayer. But we should all at least be on the same page, at least go in the same direction in here.
[19:45] The context of our obedience is the world he's put us in. The place where we stand out. The place where we're tried and we're tempted and we're judged and we're mocked and we're ridiculed.
[20:00] And the context of where he wants us to do these things is the land he's given us to possess. Remember what Paul said in the book of Acts, in the sermon on Mars Hill, Acts chapter 17, where this great thing, you know, Paul is wandering around Athens here and he's looking at Athens, all their idolatrous worship, and he comes upon this altar that's built to the unknown God.
[20:22] And Paul says, hey, there's an opportunity, right? And he goes to Mars Hill. Mars Hill is where all the smart people hang out. And that's where they go. The Bible tells us they go there just to learn something new. And Paul says, I've got something new they can learn, right?
[20:33] And Paul was an educated man. So Paul says, I've come here to tell you about the God you worship in ignorance through the unknown God. I want to tell you about the unknown God that you have an altar built to, but he doesn't exist in an altar.
[20:44] He doesn't live in a temple made by hands. And he starts telling them of the true God. And then he makes this wonderful statement. He says, in former days, God just let man wander around in their ignorance and all this thing.
[20:55] He said, but God has ordained the location and the time in history where all men should dwell. What he's telling them is, God let you live at this time in history so that you could hear the truth I'm telling you.
[21:15] Paul stood out. He was mocked. Some people wanted to hear him. Some people thought, oh, he's a babbler of crazy talk because he starts talking about the resurrection. But when we begin to grasp that, that God has appointed when and where we should live, regardless of our choices.
[21:34] God overrules our choices. The Bible tells us in the book of Psalms, man plans his step, but God ordains those days. Right? God determines where he goes. Man can plan all he wants to, but God determines.
[21:46] So no matter how we look at it, God has so determined we are to live at this time, in this place, in history, right now. Now, this is the context God has put us in to live a life of loving obedience.
[22:01] Not just in the confines of his presence. Look, he says, you're to do that in the land where you're going to possess it. Look at verse 3, it repeats that. Oh, Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it.
[22:15] What? To do it. The commands. The love. To obey him. That it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey.
[22:30] Again, it's connected to the land. By the way, one of their judgments when they were cast out, when they didn't obey, where were they taken? Out of the land. Right?
[22:42] They were removed from the land. Why? Because of their disobedience. God put them in that land to live out his truth before them. He put them in that land to be ambassadors for him for the world to see.
[22:55] And when they failed to do that, he took them out of the land and he dispersed them among the nations and kind of made them blend in. So we don't want to say, oh, God, I don't want to stand out. I don't want to stand out.
[23:05] I don't want to stand out. No. The context God has given us is he wants us to stand out. He wants our love and our obedience and our response to him to be so radical that people are drawn not to us but to him.
[23:22] It needs to be authentic. And then we say, hey, be careful not to, you know, we can be as Paul said, imitate me as I imitate Christ. But we don't need to stop halfway through there and go imitate me because be careful following me.
[23:34] But follow me as I follow Christ. But Paul says, context is yes. You know, again, it's repeated. We'll get to it in Matthew. Let your light so shine before men.
[23:44] You are, the Bible says, a city set on a hill. Cities set on a hill are noticed. You are a lamp set on a lamp stand. It doesn't say you can be. You might be. What Jesus says there is you are that thing.
[23:58] You are to shine. That's what the nation of Israel was called to do. This is the context of their obedience. Number two, we see the commission that was given to them. The commission. Now, Moses reiterates his commission.
[24:10] He says, I was commanded to hear these things and teach them to you. Moses was commissioned to instruct the people. Right? He says, this is the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you.
[24:23] Moses says, my job is to teach you and to equip you and to share with you everything that I know. And he begins to commission the people. He says, okay, now that I have taught you, you bear responsibility.
[24:35] By the way, this is worth noting too because, again, this is one of those truths that has application that moves out of the Old Testament into the New Testament into the church age.
[24:45] Truth gained brings responsibility with it. Right? Truth gained brings responsibility.
[24:57] Moses did not say, God commanded me to teach you these things just so you would know them. He says, God commanded me to teach you these things so that you would do them.
[25:11] Right? And it's something that I've said before. Again, it bears repeating. Truth without application is useless information.
[25:23] All truth is to be lovingly applied to our life. That is, whatever it is we learn. That's not just when we come together. Anytime I open up scripture and I see the word of God and I'm standing before the Bible and I go, I've never seen that.
[25:43] By the way, it happened to me this morning in my daily reading. I don't know how many times I've followed this same reading plan. And many of us are. I counted it up the other day. At least eight years. Which means for eight years on this date, October 20th, I've read the same set of scriptures for eight years in a row.
[26:00] And this morning I went, wow. I've never seen that. What does that mean? God is revealing something else to me he wants me to do.
[26:12] Application. Right? A commissioning. God gives it to us for us to do something. And this is what it is. We come to what we call the Shema.
[26:24] In Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 and 5. Very prominent in Jewish history, by the way. To this day, every Jewish, at least faithful Jewish individual, learns this.
[26:38] It was said, and it's been recorded in history, that when a Jewish boy was born into the family, the very first thing he ever learned to say was this. When he learned to talk, this is what they taught him.
[26:49] This is what they put in his mind. And any Jew waking up would say it. And he would repeat it at the beginning of the day and repeats it at the end of the day.
[27:01] Still to this day. Shema comes from the word hear. Hear, O Israel. Now we kind of, when we introduced the book of Deuteronomy, we saw this. The word hear there doesn't just mean like you're hearing me, right?
[27:12] It doesn't mean like, oh yeah, I heard what he said. That's not what it means. To hear, it says, hear, O Israel. That means pay close attention to this. Do something based upon what you're about to hear. Hear with the expectation that you're going to take action upon what you're about to hear.
[27:27] That's what it means. I mean, the word is just loaded with meaning. It means, okay, what I'm about to say or what I'm about to listen to is probably going to radically change my life. And this is their commission.
[27:38] And it's in verses 4, 5, and 6. So 4 and 5 is what they repeat. It says, hear, O Israel. The Lord is our God. The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might.
[27:53] Verse 6. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your hearts. This is their commission. First thing is pay close attention, right? Listen to this intentively and expectantly with desire to do something based on what you're hearing.
[28:11] And then he says, the Lord is our God. Yahweh is our Elohim. Yahweh covenant name. Capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D.
[28:22] Yahweh means I am, right? I am present. I am here. I am there. I am and I always will be here. That's what Yahweh means. Again, another loaded name of God. Yahweh is our Elohim.
[28:33] Now that's important because that sets him apart. Because what he is saying here is, Baal is not our Elohim. Asherah is not our Elohim. These other gods over here, that's not our Elohim.
[28:44] Yahweh, he's our Elohim. Elohim, you should have picked up on that from six years ago or almost six years ago. I know you guys did. Because in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
[28:56] In the beginning, Elohim. And we said then that that's unique. And the reason it's unique is it's plural. It doesn't say in the beginning, El, E-L. It's Elohim, which is the plural form of that.
[29:10] Many Bible scholars, there's some New Testament scholars, agree with just like Genesis 1 does, so does this one as well. It leaves the door open for what we define as the Trinity.
[29:21] He is one, but he is one in three. We're not going to sit here and try to explain that. I will probably never try to explain that because I cannot explain that. It is just reiterated.
[29:34] Right? We can look at it. We can discuss it. But explain it? Probably not ever. What does he say? The Lord. He is distinct. He is separate. The Lord is our God. The Lord is one.
[29:46] Yahweh is one. Literally, again, it means no one else is before him. No other should be in front of his face. He is the only one. So here's the first commission they have. The God they serve is distinct and separate.
[30:01] He's not like the God of the rest of the world. He's not like those lowercase g, those gods. He's not like the gods they're going to encounter on the other side. He's not like those foreign gods.
[30:12] He's not like those poles and those Asherah and those golden calves and Moloch and all those other gods they'll encounter. He's nothing like them. He is one. He is unique.
[30:23] He is distinct. You don't need all these different gods. He is the God. The first thing they are sent to do is to understand this and love him. They love him because of his distinctness.
[30:35] They love him because of his uniqueness. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. This is an oft-repeated phrase. Sometimes the fourth one is added in there.
[30:46] Either way, as some scholars will tell you, it really doesn't matter if it's three or four. The meaning is the same. Love him with all you are. He is to be the totality of your devotion.
[30:59] He is to be the all-consuming passion of your life. He is to be the one thing that is more important than anything else. The commission he gives to people, love God with all that you have.
[31:12] Right? How do you obey him? Love him with all your being. It's not a mental love. It's not even a heart love.
[31:22] It's not a, you know, when I do pre-marriage counseling and I'm talking to couples and they're getting ready to be married, we go through all these, this couple up here is about to, you know, celebrate a year. And so this is pretty fresh to them.
[31:33] I went through this, and we start talking about all these different loves. And the Bible has five unique words for love. And we go through all of them and we kind of look at it. And, you know, we say we can't really base ourselves upon any one particular love.
[31:46] And you can't just have this euros love. That's your erotica love. That's the love that you feel things, right? Because feelings change. Right? And I tell them, I say, I don't mean to bust your bubble.
[31:57] You know, marriage isn't always going to be goosebumps. It may be goosebumps sometimes in a bad way. Goosebumps, I'm anger goosebumps. It's not all easy, right? It's not easy because we're messed up individuals.
[32:09] So if your love is based upon goosebumps, when the goosebumps disappear, it's going to fall apart, right? And then there's the phileo love, which is a friend like, I love him like a brother, Philadelphia. That's easy to understand because that's where we get Philadelphia.
[32:21] It's a brotherly love. I love you like my brother. That's why, you know, our youngest one, he still kind of looks at me like I'm weird. I can be talking to a guy on the phone or a guy in person. I'm like, I love you, brother. And he's just like, you just told him, man, you love him.
[32:32] And I genuinely mean it because it's a phileo love. It's a phileo, Philadelphia love. It's a brotherly love. It's a devotion, a connection, right? It is a bond.
[32:44] But sometimes we don't feel real brotherly, right? Sometimes brothers fight. Sometimes they bicker. And there's the agapeo love or agape love.
[32:58] That is the self-sacrificing love that is only given to God in Scripture. Scripture is set apart. What I'm trying to say is the commission that he gives them is don't just love him with one part of your being.
[33:13] Love him with all your being. Give him all of your devotion. As we find in Scripture, sometimes you won't feel like loving God.
[33:27] I don't think Job felt like loving him when his children were taken away, his possessions were taken away, and his health was taken away. But God chose. I mean, Job chose to love him.
[33:38] So we have to sometimes go beyond our feelings. Sometimes we can't figure something out, and intellectually and mentally it doesn't make sense.
[33:50] And this is where a lot of people hit a roadblock, and they say, well, it's so confusing. I don't get it. I don't get it. And I don't get it. But by faith we have to say, though I don't get it, we're going to love him.
[34:00] I'm going to trust him to reveal it to me later. Love him with all of your being. So much so, these words which I'm commanding you today should be on your heart.
[34:12] He says, don't just memorize them. Embed them. The heart in Scripture is always the seat of emotion. It's kind of like your bowels, right?
[34:25] It's that uneasiness or that comfort. It's the seat of emotion. It's the core of your being. Just get deep down.
[34:36] The commission he gives them, a greater commission. It's a commission, and by the way, the believers are given in the New Testament by this, will all people know that you love me, right? Your love for one another.
[34:48] And the Apostle John speaks of this often, but the commission is this, love the Lord your God with all your being. Seems pretty easy, right?
[35:00] And if you love him with all of your being, then you will obey him in the land he's put you in. Third, and finally, not only do we see the context of the obedience to the commission that he gives them, number three, we see the confession that every home is to make.
[35:16] The confession that every home is to make. Because here's the reality. When people put in a certain location, absolutely love the Lord their God, then they will openly make a confession as to who he is.
[35:31] And that confession starts at home. Because look at what it says. He says, these words that I'm commanding you today should be in your heart.
[35:42] These things that are dear to you. He says, and they overflow from there. Verses 7, 8, and 9. You should teach them diligently to your sons. They should talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.
[35:55] So he says the first place this starts is at home. Which means your home should be so ordered that this is just natural conversation. Right? This is just something that happens.
[36:07] That if these things are the love of your life, then you ought to be able to talk to them, talk about them with your children, or with the people inside your house. You ought to be able to just bring it up in casual conversation. And it shouldn't shock them that you're talking about it.
[36:19] It should be, you know, natural. I've probably failed as a father at what we would call family devotions, or what a lot of people are family worship.
[36:36] My kids are here. You can ask them. Hopefully you'll ask them after service, not during service. But if you want to, you're welcome to. One thing we tried to do is when we sat around the table, when we were just living life, we just tried to live real.
[36:52] And talk about these things. I fell in that, but how could I not talk about something that means so much, right? You say, oh, you're a pastor. No.
[37:04] First, I'm a believer. Right? I am a forgiven, redeemed sinner. And that's enough. Talk about these things.
[37:18] And start in a home. You're confessing that in your life, and it shouldn't shock the members of our house when we start talking about it. So what he's saying is, it should be so authentic, it doesn't just take them by surprise.
[37:34] Right? And not only that, the confession is put on display. Because he says, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. Now the Jewish people, at times, took this to the extreme and took it literally.
[37:47] This is why you have those little boxes, even to this day, on people's foreheads, a little scroll of scripture in there. And you have something tied around their hand to a little scroll of scripture there. And you see them at the welling wall in Jerusalem still with that little box right there.
[37:58] And it's got a little scroll of scripture. But I don't know that it was meant to be taken literally. I just think, it seems to me, the application is, whatever your hand is doing and whatever your mind is thinking should be guided by these things.
[38:13] That is, whatever you put your hand to and you put your mind to should be guided, first of all, by your love for the Lord your God. Whatever it is. That seems consistent with scripture because it says, whatever you do, do us unto the Lord and not unto man.
[38:27] So whatever I put my hand to do, it is to be guided by scripture. I love the Lord my God so much and I'm gonna do this to the best of the ability he's given me. Whatever I'm thinking on, it should be as a frontal, my forehead, the portion of my brain, the reasoning and all.
[38:42] So whatever it is I'm thinking on or considering, the first motivating factor for every decision I make should be my love for the Lord my God.
[38:55] Think how much more our confession would resonate if that was the first thing we considered in every decision, is this going to affect my love for God greater or is it going to hinder my love for Him?
[39:09] That's radical. You start talking about radical. I mean, you start making decisions and choices based upon your love for God, I promise you, society's gonna give you a reason to go against it. And you're gonna stand out.
[39:23] And if you tell somebody, I just can't do that because of my love for the Lord my God. I'm gonna look at you like you're nuts. And that's gonna be okay. Because now you have a confession that you share and you proclaim.
[39:38] And then he goes on to say not only is that confession something that happens in the home and something that happens as you do things, it's a confession that's public. He begins to make it public because he says you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
[39:52] How many of you have seen the old movie Ben-Hur? I've told you you need to watch the old three hour movie Ben-Hur, right? It has an interlude in the middle. It has a place for you to take a break and go to the bathroom.
[40:02] It literally says interlude and plays orchestra music. It's black and white and I love that movie and I know there's a new one and it's in color but it's not three hours long and it's not good, right? You ever remember the final scenes are there at the end where Ben-Hur comes to his house.
[40:18] Some of you are gonna go watch it and have it if you want to borrow it just to see this. And for a couple of you have seen it and he finally comes back to his house and the house is all dilapidated and there's that little weird thing on the side of the door and he touches it when he walks in.
[40:32] Some of you vaguely remember that. That's this thing because the houses would have on the doorpost of the house this box and in that box it would contain scripture. And as they walked by it they would touch it and it would remind them this house stands on the word of God.
[40:47] And they would write it across their gates and the fences and the doors. See Ben-Hur had to come in through the gates, right? This would be written on the gates because that way anybody that walked by could say that house those people they are with that God.
[41:06] The word of God matters to that house. Now, let's put it in context. Where is he telling them to live? And that land over there where a lot of people don't have that on their gates or their walls. And the people that are going to walk by are going to say that place is different.
[41:23] It's set apart. It's got the mark. Remember a couple years ago? We were in one of the foreign lands and we were picking out the Christians.
[41:35] They were painting marks on the doors of the Christians' homes to tell them either get out or we're coming back. Remember that? The radical Islam were marking the Christians' houses that were setting them apart?
[41:49] You know what God says? Yeah. It's supposed to be set apart because you're supposed to stand out. You're supposed to look different.
[42:02] And so he's telling them write it. Right? Write it across your gates. Put it on the doorpost of your house. Stand out. And confess me to the people looking on.
[42:17] Old children's song. Do I hide it under a bushel? No. Do I put it in my pocket? No. Let it shine. Stand out.
[42:29] Confess him. Because how can we live in loving obedience? And nobody know it. That is a biblical impossibility.
[42:47] There was a secret believer in Jesus Christ who came the night he died. Many Bible scholars question, was he really a believer?
[42:59] I mean, was he saved? Because he's the only one we find in scripture that says he was a secret believer. I can't answer that. I don't know his heart or mine. But he's the only one in scripture.
[43:12] There's a lot of people in scripture that I want to be like. That's not one of them. I don't want to be that only one. Right?
[43:23] We can live lives of loving obedience. Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 1 through 9 Thank you, brother.