Living the Shema Life Part 1
Living the Shema Life • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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The Word is Alive
The Word is Alive
In Deuteronomy Chapter 6 we find what Israel called the “Shema” שְׁמַע. They viewed this one passage so much as one of the most important parts of God’s Word that even to this day it is still recited twice daily (morning and evening).
For most Christians who have any familiarity with it at all, most only know the first line, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one.” But there is so much more to the Shema. The Shema is what we call in the Army, Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). An SOP gives you detailed instructions on how things are expected to function for the best possible outcome. The Shema provides the processes and practices for generations to live in the promises of God. It is more importantly, God’s Family Mission Statement. It tells us why and how our families, to include the Church, are to function within the family of God. It is God’s Word.
“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 his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long.
God does not start this as a suggestion or recommendation. This is not a commercial for a new recommended product or service for self-help and improving your physical and material quality of life. God starts by letting us know this is a “Commandment” (mitzvoh מִצְוָה). This means it is perpetual precepts. It is His “word” because Father said so, enough said.
Therefore, to avoid any misunderstanding, let’s understand God’s “Word”. If “shema” means “hear and obey”. Then we need to understand God’s “word” so that we may not miss hearing it.
Let’s look at a few verses that most are familiar with regarding God’s “Word”.
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
But what is His “Word”? With Greek thinking we default to the concept of “logos” λόγος. In the Greek, this simply means a speech, a decree, or the act of speaking. In fact, even in the basic Hebrew concept of “word” in the form of debhar דָּבָר it is “to speak”. It fundamentally means “to be behind and drive forward” (Boman, Thorlief, Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek, p. 65). The verb presents the function of thinking then speaking one word driving another to formulate a thought or idea. It is kind of like a back seat driver. They are in the back seat thinking for you and their words come from the back to the front giving you directions and instructions. But they often cause confusion. So, God does not want to be your back seat driver or your co-pilot navigator. He wants to be the driver. Thus, His word driving your life.
The problem with our p’hasat פשט, or surface level interpretation, is that we read those verses about His “word” and immediately equate them merely as an act of vocalizing in context of our physical point of reference.
God’s “Word” does not belong to the physical realm. It belongs to the spiritual realm of reality. His Word is revelation of the spiritual that makes all things that are manifested in our time and space. Thus, God speaking is more than an act of breath and sound but it is an act of deed from His own desire.
Thus, Christ, being the “Word” of God from the beginning, was an act of His great love.
The Hebrew word debhar not only means “to speak” but it also means “a deed”. This is why we speak of a man being a “man of his word.” He is only a man of his word if he follows through and does exactly what he said he would do. Even still, this word does not do justice to describing God’s Word. God’s Word is “in itself not only sound and breath but a reality. In context of God’s Word it would be best translated as ‘effective word’ including not only what is said but the act of it being done as soon as He says it.” (Boman, Thorlief, Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek, p. 65).
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
If this is true of God’s Word, then what of our hearing? The passage in Deuteronomy 6 is called the “Shema” which means “to hear”. But hearing, by Hebrew definition, means to “obey”. We see this throughout this passage in various forms such as:
“to do them”
“Keep them” (keep: shemar שָׁמַר meaning to guard and protect. The root is shema.)
“Hear therefore”
“be careful to do”
So, if God’s Word is not merely physical but spiritual. When God spoke these words through The Prophet Moses, they were an act of spiritual desire from God’s own heart into the very being of Moses. Then they were made manifest to God’s people. So, they are not words of the past. They are very much words of the present. They are words that should impact our very being and existence to the core of who we are, the core of our families, and the core of our faith. These words are alive and are building blocks to live by. Anything short of this is to make them mere sound and breath put in ink and paper. Do not rob these words of their power.