Deut. 6:1-9
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Thread: A relationship with Christ is the acceptance of Divine Rule
Series: Boundaries
What it’s about
God’s Law and the boundaries He has established are not designed to keep us from fun or excitement that sin has deceived us into believing.
They are there to protect us and allow us to enjoy the life and joy that is found in relationship with Christ.
We’ve talked a lot about how God’s law brings life in relationship with Christ but how do we create and maintain a desire to stay in the boundaries that God has established for us.
Let’s go back to our DisneyWorld example we have used for the last few weeks.
Inside Disney there is fun and excitement and life and joy
Outside there is the wild Florida man, anacondas, and hundreds of acres of swampland.
You would not be able to enjoy Disney however if you spent your whole time looking over the walls to the outside.
We often focus so much on what is outside the boundaries of a relationship with God (what we can’t or shouldn’t do) that we can lose sight of the truth and life that is found in relationship with Christ.
If you are a believer in this room, or maybe you have thought about becoming a believer I want you to get one thing from tonights message.
Obedience in your relationship with Jesus is the best possible way of living your life.
We are about to pray but before we do I am going to read the Shema over us again this week as a prayer and a reminder of who God is and how we respond to Him
Remember I am changing O Israel to O People of God because just as Israel was God’s chosen people, through Christ we are also now counted as God’s chosen people.
Deut. 6:4-5 ““Hear, O People of God: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
Pray
Deut. 6:1-3 ““Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you,
This is not Moses plan, this is God’s Plan
that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, 2 that you may fear (have reverence or respect for)
Mark that word fear because we’re coming back for it
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. 3 Hear 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 fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.”
Moses is telling the Israelites that living under the authority of God will bring life.
Living outside God’s authority does not.
Moses is continually reminding Israel (and us) to be careful and to intentionally obey God and to teach others to do the same BECAUSE we as sinful, fallen, broken people are prone (or bent) to rejecting God’s authority.
Even though we know there is life in Christ we are so often caught looking over the boundaries at sin and being tempted to hop over.
Remember, sin is tempting, but it is deceiving.
It’s a heaping mound of dog poop that looks like chocolate ice cream
Under God’s authority there is life, outside of it there is death
There is one way that leads to life, and that is through a relationship with Christ
Deut. 6:4 ““Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
Hear = Shema = Hear and obey
O Israel: The Lord our God The Lord is one
Moses is declaring that there are no other God’s
The Lord is God and God alone and there is none other that is like Him
The life that Moses has talked about can only be found in the one true God of creation.
Worship of anything else leads to death
Vs. 5 tells us that because there is only one God, that there are NO OTHER GODS
That we are to love God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our might
Meaning: With every fiber of our beings we should love God
How do we love God? Deut. 6:2 says by obeying His commandments.
How do you remember to obey His commandments?
Deut. 6:6 “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.”
They should be as close to you as your heart is.
They should be ingrained in you.
I have so many commercial jingles stuck in my head
Nationwide is on your side
McDonalds I’m Lovin It
Folgers
We remember these jingles because we hear them constantly.
They become ingrained in us
Moses tells us to ingrain these words (the bible) in our hearts.
Deut. 6:7-9 “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall 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. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
Let God into every aspect of your life, in your house, when you are walking to and from class, before you go to sleep and when you get up.
This does not mean that you need to read your bible every hour of every day.
What this means is that you remember that your first and foremost priority as a christian is obedience to God.
When you’re at home do you take moments out of your day to spend time with the Lord.
Do you talk with mom and dad about what the Lord is teaching you
Do you honor God by how you live for Him in your schools
Do you wake up in the morning and thank the Lord for the day
Do you go to sleep and thank the Lord for the day
So often people think that a deep relationship with God is spent reading the bible 14 hours a day
It’s not, it’s recognizing that every day there are hundreds of opportunities to live in an obedient relationship with Him by choosing to obey Him instead of the world.
The story of Daniel is a great example for how we live our lives in an obedient relationship with God.
Daniel and his friends were in a foreign land that did not worship God
They were threatened with death if they did not do and act like the others around them.
They knew that if they acted like those around them they would be disobeying God
So they decided to obey God.
They didn’t have to spend hours studying the bible everyday
They just had to decide that obeying God was better than sinning against Him
They decided that it was better to die in obedience to God than it was to live in disobedience to Him.
Pause
Remember what I have been teaching you the last few weeks.
We are not saved by what we do.
That is moralism
You can’t work your way to heaven
We are saved by the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross for us.
But obedience to God is a response to His grace.
So because we have been saved by Christ from sin and death our response is to recognize that it is only through that relationship that we can find life.
And as your relationship with Him deepens your desire to obey Him grows because you begin to fear (to stand in awe of) the Lord more
So tonight, if you are saying that it is hard to obey God’s commandments
Maybe you struggle with sin
Maybe you feel like you don’t know enough about the Bible to be able to talk about it every day
Maybe you find it hard to read the Bible every day
If your sitting here as a believer tonight and you want to know where to begin to grow in an obedient relationship with Christ
It all begins with a fear of the Lord.
I told y’all we were going to come back to this.
Fear = Yire = To stand in awe of
To fear the Lord is to understand that God is the most awesome being in the entire universe.
Nothing will ever compare to the sheer awe that God commands and that same God who breathes the stars into existence has made a way for you and I as His creation to live in relationship with Him.
What does it mean to fear the Lord
Job 38:1-13 “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? “Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’? “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it?”
What does it mean to fear the Lord?
To stand in awe of the fact that the God who can do all of this and more calls you and I by name into a personal relationship with Him
A relationship with the God who saved us when we were living in our sin and in our death, outside the boundaries of God He was gracious to us and called us out and into relationship with Him.
Now we respond to Christ’s act of grace by living in obedience to Him that brings life and life abundantly.
Look at your note cards that we wrote the first week and remind yourselves of what you have dedicated to God
Maybe a sin you want to stop
Maybe a deeper relationship with Him
Whatever it is, I can tell you that as you deepen your relationship with God, the more you daily stand in awe of Him the greater desire you will have to live in obedience to His will.
Pray
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