Above All Else, Love God
The Story of the Old Testament: Deuteronomy • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Prayer
Not Just Listening
My guess is that you can all relate to this scenario - a mom comes in the room, say, the kitchen. And her child has left a big mess there and is now sitting down comfortably on the couch watching television, eating his snack. What does the Mom do? “Excuse me, you left quite a big mess in there. That needs to be taken care of.” Now, whether you’re more familiar with this scenario as the parent or the child, that’s for you do decide.
No response from the son. So, Mom, again - did you hear me? This time the son responds, “Yes, I heard you!” The Mom, confident that she has communicated what needs to be done, goes back upstairs. Later, when she comes back down, the mess is still there.
Mom is, of course, upset. Why was she upset? Because what was implicit in telling the child that he left a mess in the kitchen was not just that he heard his mess is in the kitchen and that he should take care of it - but that he would actually go clean it up! Not just that he heard, but that he responded, he obeyed - he hears the command and then he obeys it.
That is exactly what God, through Moses is commanding the Israelites to do in what has become a central command for the Jews and, of course, for as as followers of Jesus. This command is known as the Shema, found in Deuteronomy 6.
Before we get to that, brief recap - we’re in the third week of our journey through the book of Deuteronomy . We started with setting the stage - Israelites gathered in Moabite territory, on the east side of the Jordan River, poised to enter into the land God has promised to give them after wandering in the desert for forty years. Moses is giving them (as directed by God) final instructions, reminder of all that God has done for them to get them to this point and all he has commanded them to do.
Last week we were in Deuteronomy 4, talking about the greatness of God. The fact that there is no other god like Yahweh. No other god has done what God has done. And what it means to, from Deuteronomy 4:39, “acknowledge and take to heart this day that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other.”
Today, as we venture into Deuteronomy 6, we’re going to focus on the natural implications of acknowledging that the Lord is God on heaven above and on the earth below. And natural implication, the reasonable and correct response to that, is to love him with all of our heart and and all of our soul and all of our strength.
Which is exactly what the Shema is all about. We’re going to read the passage and then make our way through it, Deuteronomy 6:1-9...These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3 Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you. 4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Above All Else, Love God
The phrase is used twice (which is always a clue as to what is important to pay attention to) - and this phrase is where the command gets its name, the Shema. Shema y’israel. Hear, O Israel. Listen up, Israel, pay attention. And, as we noted before, not just listen, but listen and obey. The command was not just to hear what God was saying, but to respond in obedience. Those two things are two sides of the same coin, they go together - listen and obey.
This is exactly what Jesus is referring to in Matthew 13 when he says about the Jews, “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.” - In other words, they hear the words, but they don’t respond, they are not really hearing - they are not getting what’s being said to them, they are not taking it to heart.
And here’s the first thing they are to listen and obey to - all that we talked about last week: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. It can also be translated as The Lord our God is one Lord. Or the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.
They all point to the same thing - there is no other. Yahweh is THE one true God. Our Lord is God. He alone. He is singular. Unique, no one else comes close.
This is the great reality that we are to acknowledge and take to heart. To embrace this truth. To let our minds be enthralled by who God is, his greatness. This is one of the measures of our vision framework, the way we know we’re becoming the church God has called us to, the unique kingdom calling he’s given us: that our minds would be captivated by the reality of God and his kingdom.
We focused on this because it is essential - because it sets the stage for our willingness to respond in obedience, to do what is the right and natural response to the fact that the Lord is God, that he alone is Lord. To love him with all that we are, our entire being - which is the next part of the Shema, what we to hear and obey.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
First, I want to take a minute or two for us to think about what we mean when we say to Love the Lord your God. And we say that a lot here at PCC. We talk about it a lot in terms of it being one of the primary measures of Christian maturity, of growing into the fullness of life as a follower of Jesus - the measurement is love. Loving God above all else, and loving our neighbor as ourselves.
So what does it mean to love God? What kind of love? What exactly are we being commanded to do? The word being used here is ahavah, and it means to have affection for, to care for. It’s used in a variety of ways throughout the Old Testament, from a parent to a child (Abraham to Isaac), as brotherly love (Jonathan for David), loyalty (one king to another).
And it’s the word that’s used from God toward his people, his ahavah, his affection, his everlasting care for us. We are to ahavah God because he first ahavah’d us. We love because he loves. And this is important part, when we talk about having affection and care toward God, it’s not just about having a feeling, to feel affection, it’s about doing. Action. True ahavah means putting that affection and care into action, in the same way that God put his affection into action.
This love, this ahavah, is to be with the fullness of who we are. That’s what it means when it says to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” In short, with our whole being, the fullness of who we are.
And this is really the main point with drawing all this out - Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. And Jesus, when he teaches this command as the greatest commandment, he adds your mind to it as well, love the lord your God with all your mind. It’s all to say, to love the Lord your God with every fiber of your being. With every aspect of who you are.
And particularly, when it uses the language of heart, soul, strength - it’s talking about the very center of who we are, to the very depths of ourselves. The heart, in Hebrew thinking, was the center of will, of emotion, of reason and intellect - what drives a person. The central driving force of our life, our very purpose, above all else, is to love God.
Just to think about that for a moment, to let that sink in. The central driving purpose of our lives, that which we are to pursue with all that we are, our strength - word here means exceedingly, implies totality, is to love God. To have absolute affection and desire to please him with all that we do. In a way that we do for no other person or thing, he above all else.
Why it’s so important that we acknowledge and take to heart that he, and he alone, is Lord. There is no other. That we become more and more enthralled with who God is, his power…his mercy…his faithfulness…his glory…his goodness…his wisdom…his creativity...No one or nothing else is worth this absolute dedication
And because this is to be the central driving purpose of our life - to love God with the fullness of who we are, we better be very deliberate about that. Make sure we do everything we can to become people who love the Lord our God above all else. That’s what verses 6-9 are all about -
Notice, again, where Moses tells the commandments are to be, “these commandments that I give you today are to be on your heart” - right there, front and center, in the very center of who you are, your emotion and reason, your will. It’s gotta be right there (heart). How do you get them on your heart?
Let me bring us back for a moment to the first part of the Shema - the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Why it’s so essential to acknowledge that and take it to heart. Because being enthralled with God, having our minds captivated by reality of God, his love for us, taking that to heart, is what spurs that affection within. It predisposes us towards loving him. 1 John 4:19, We love because he first loved us. Our ahavah is the response to God’s. When we acknowledge and take to heart who God is, recognize and embrace his love, the natural response is to feel affection for him, to want to do good on his behalf, to please him.
It’s recognizing God’s greatness, his immense love that puts us in the right frame of mind, provides our hearts the inclination to ahavah him in response. That predisposition is so essential - most of you know I do a little bit of substitute teaching, and I see what a huge impact frame of mind / inclination of heart has. I give out the assignment their teacher provided, and some kids are ready to go. ready to learn, to do the work. Other kids, not so much. It’s like pulling teeth - I have to monitor them constantly and even then it amazes me how little work they manage to get done. They don’t have a frame of mind towards learning.
We talk a lot about spiritual disciplines here, because they are the habits that enable us to know and become like Jesus. But here’s the thing, Spiritual disciplines - require work, effort, time. Let’s be honest, we’re not always there, not feeling it. But the more we recognize the greatness of God, our minds and hearts are inclined towards him, that affection grows - we want to be with God. That time in Scripture, in prayer, in worship, serving him, feels less and less like a chore, a duty - and more and more like, a want to. We do it readily.
Richard Foster’s seminal book on spiritual disciplines is called “Celebration of Disciplines” - he gave it that title for that exact reason - they aren’t meant to be a chore, but a delight, a joy. It makes me think about Jesus’ invitation in Matthew 11:28-30, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. To take on Jesus’ yoke is to follow his way, his teachings.
That’s exactly what Moses is teaching the Israelites to do: Do everything you can - learn all the commandments, everything God teaches you to do, know them well enough that you teach them to your children. NIV uses the word impress, impress them on your children. It’s the idea of repeat, recite, keep drilling it in until they get it. I’m sure we can all think about those certain rules or bits of wisdom that your parents would say, they’ve become ingrained in your minds - because they impressed them upon you.
Let it pervade every aspect of your life, so you talk about them whether you’re sitting at home or out and about “walking along the road”. Whether it’s nighttime or during the day (when you lie down and when you get up). You’re meditating, you’re thinking about them - because they are so important, so vital - and it’s how you are to live, centered on loving obedience to the Lord our God.
Later Jewish generations took literally the commands to tie them as symbols on the hands and bound on the foreheads, written on the doorframes of the houses and gates. But this wasn’t meant to be taken literally - but rather symbolically, doing whatever it takes to keep the command to love God, to be obedient to him, constantly in your mind and heart. If that means putting it on your hands or on your forehead, do it! If writing it on the doorframe so you see if every time you walk in or out, go for it.
If you think about it, we do similar things today - people will get tattoos, often to represent the things most important to them. Serves as both a declaration to others and a reminder to themselves. Or people often wear the rubber bracelets, necklaces. Hang decorations in the house that have sayings on them - phrases, words, Scripture passages, that represent what the household is about.
This is exactly what we’re trying to do when we talk about spiritual disciplines - same idea. Cultivating habits, practices that will help shape our minds and hearts toward being people who love God above everything else and who love our neighbor as ourselves. It’s our effort toward making those things the driving force of our lives: Hear, O PCC, the Lord our God is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. What will we do so that these commandments will be on your hearts?
Last week we talked about spiritual disciplines that would help cultivate the conviction of the greatness of God, there is no other, to be enthralled with him. And I say that because it begins there - our ahavah, our love for God, is a response to his love for us.
This week I want to give some thoughts about impressing these commandments so they will be on our hearts. So one thing you might do is just what that means - repeat, recite. As you begin each day, recite and pray in response to God the greatest commandments: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Offer yourself to God to do just that.
Or, as we often do in our time in worship, to use those verses as the framework for the discipline of confession. Every day, perhaps in the evening, as the end of the day, with guidance of the Holy Spirit, reflect on your day - How did I love you today, Lord? How did I love my neighbor? Respond in confession and thanksgiving.
Let me just finish this morning by saying, this is it. These two commands, this is the very heart of what it means to know and love and follow Jesus, to be a Christian. That’s what Jesus means when he says, these are the most important ones. Which means, if these are not on our hearts, we’re missing the mark, completely. We’ll never grow as his followers - we aren’t hearing AND obeying. But if they are, we’re right there. If we just set our hearts on those two commands, committed ourselves to them, that’s it. We’ll move more and more into the good and beautiful life God has for us with him.