11/9/25 Touch Your Ears if You can Hear me

Good morning. I want to thank you for the opportunity to share this morning.

I have spent much of this year looking at all the times Jesus shows up in the old testament. If it was once in a while, that would be enough for me. But if you really dig in you find Jesus everywhere.

Not always in the flesh, though that does happen. But if you read the Old Testament as a guide to point someone to Jesus, you see him everywhere.

We have seen him in Genesis in Creation and walking with Adam and Eve, eating with Abraham.

We saw him develop a friendship with Moses in Exodus. We enjoyed him in Leviticus and we saw his power, wrath and mercy in Numbers.

Now we hit the fifth and final book that is attributed to Moses himself. It’s called Deuteronomy and it means second law. Now, some people who are reading through the Bible and if you have a study Bible you’ll read that Deuteronomy means second law and you might read a few pages and see a lot of repetition and say that oh I can skip this one.

Well, don’t. Firstly, repetition is good for memory and Deuteronomy is not just a repetition, it has some unique narratives not found in the first 4 books, including two we will go through, namely, the requirements for a king and the death of Moses.

Today however, we at hyper focusing on two verses and a few of you have slips of paper that have these two verses on them.

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 ESV

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.

This is what it looks like in the New International Version a very common and well know Translation

Now, I want to say something about the word of God and how it is communicated to people.

You may have heard me say once or twice that the gospel has never changed, but how we present it must.

This means that if I go up to a bunch of preschoolers full of energy and sugar and ask them to sit real still and recite in the King James 1611 english the Gospel, I’m probably not going to be as successful as taking them outside, and playing a game that communicates the gospel.

That’s one extreme. I would also have little success going into a German speaking church and reading a chinese Bible.

There is something to be said to learning a persons HEART LANGUAGE.

And we are going to be speaking these verses a little today in other peoples heart languages. Many of which are in English, but some are not.

What do I mean by Heart Language then?

It’s the language and culture that makes sense to you.

Some people love the King James Version, some can’t understand it, but they do understand the New International Version.

Some people like the Old Hymns, some like Christian 80’s hair bands like Stryper. We are all receptive to the gospel in different ways.

A passage to look to for this would be Acts 17. It’s a chapter to look through on your own, but to sum up, Paul takes a look around Athens, see’s what engages people and uses that to engage them with the Gospel and he succeeds in sharing with others.

But back to our verses

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 ESV

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

This is in a section of scripture called the greatest commandment.

I have it on the screen in English standard version. And it communicates a call of attention, “Hear, O Israel,” and it gives a command, “Love God,” and not just love him like you might love a dog, or a good book. But with all your heart, soul and might.

We’ll get into Heart soul and might, but let’s look at another heart language or two and.

First, let’s see the Christian Standard Bible

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 CSB

4 “Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

A few word differences. But a key one. In the ESV and NIV we heard HEAR. Some might equate that to “Pay attention, or stop what you are doing”.

LISTEN might mean more to some. I hear the radio when I drive the car, but I Listen to an audio book. It’s not just background noise. So, for me the word listen is much more impactful.

I want to hear another translation, Chrystal Mae has one.

Tagalog.

That first word, does it mean listen or hear?

When we are talking to someone in their heart language we remove barriers and build bridges. If I go to the Philippines and I share the gospel in English, I might do okay. God can move mountains in situations like these and he does.

But if I go to the Philippines and speak their heart language I will very likely have an easier time sharing the gospel with them and building a relationship.

And that word Listen is very impactful because it means way more than, I hope you’re listening, it means, what is about to be said is likely the most important thing you need to know, so give your full attention and remember.

Check out the Message Bible

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 MSG

4 Attention, Israel! God, our God! God the one and only! 5 Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got!

Now this is the other side of the spectrum.

Attention. When you are in an airplane for the first time you might hear, “Attention Passangers” and be like. Wow I have to listen and learn. But by the hundredth time on the plane, you got your seatbelt on you know where the floatation devices and and you got you earbuds in.

Attention has a very different meaning in our culture. But I will argue, to some, it may be impactful. I’m not a personal fan of the Message as it is a paraphrase and not a translation, but it does communicate the gospel and I’m sure some have come to genuine salvation through it’s text.

But the important part is to LISTEN, zero in on what is being said and remember it because it is important. And what is important.

Loving God. He is our creator, our designer, our maker. Without him nothing was made.

I did a memorial service a few years ago for a woman’s dad. I knew going in to the service that the guy was not a good dad. He was not even a good guy. I didn’t know him personally, but I had heard from people who did.

Even the daughter didn’t like him very much. But what she said was she wanted to honor her dad with a service. And when I speak to someone going through loss I ask them simply to tell me something about the person that brought them joy.

That was a hard question, but she found one a memory of her dad that made her smile. And she also knew, that without her dad she would not be here today. Was he a good guy, nope, was he a role model, far from it. But he was her dad and she had love for him.

Now, God has never let us down, he gave everything he had to save us and walks beside us each and every moment of the day. Why wouldn’t we love him. I’ll tell you why. Because people, humans, are sometimes, jerks. And when humans are jerks, we sometimes blame God for the way people treat us.

Now for a bit of full circle here. Jim talked that last few weeks about 1 John and 1 John has a lesson that points all the way back to the verses we study here today.

1 John 4:7–10 ESV

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

I think this passage as a whole points us straight back to Deuteronomy 6, but because I am looking for Jesus in the Old Testament, I find him here too.

I have another translation out there and it’s another foreign language one. And it’s the only one not from Deuteronomy 6. It’s actually from Mark 12 verses 29-30 and it’s in Greek.

Jim if you please.

Now, Jim just read the same words Moses said to the Israelites but he said them in Greek, the reason I had him read the New Testament for this one is because Jesus here is taking two old testament teachings and making them one.

Check out one more verse.

Mark 12:29–31 ESV

29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

To sum it up, Love God, and Love People. Just like 1 John 4 says. If you say you love God, but you don’t love people, you are a liar. You can not love the one who loved you despite all your sin and flaws and say to another human being that their sins and flaws are too much for you to love.

But this doesn’t mean it’s easy.

I want to share a story

This is Kathy Saint and Waodani tribesmen. Kathy Saint was the daughter of missionaries who were sent to share the gospel with this tribe. One day, while waiting to share God’s love with these men. Kathy’s father, Nate, was killed by these two men. These same two men who are baptizing her.

After murdering Nate and his fellow missionaries, the wives went back and continued to share the Gospel. Instead of hate, they chose love. And soon they Waodani were family. The man who delivered the final blow that ended the life of Nate Saint became a spiritual father to the Saint children.

Can and of us say we could do the same?

It’s hard to love. The only way we can do it is to LISTEN and obey what God has for us.

Two more heart languages:

This one is fun. The Hawaiian people have a dialect called Pidgin. And it is beautiful. When you take the time to learn someone heart language you are telling them they are important to you and to God.

Listen to How a Hawaiian would speak the Shema.

HPB 4 “Lissen, you Israel peopo! Da One In Charge, he oua God! Ony him, da God fo us!” 5 “Get love an aloha fo yoa God, Da One In Charge, wit eryting how you tink, an wit eryting dat stay inside you, an wit all yoa powa.

I love that. Even though it’s not my heart language I hear how people from Hawaii could respond to someone coming to them with those words and hearing how much you care for and love them to speak to them in their language.

One more,

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 AMP

4 Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord [the only Lord]. 5 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your [mind and] heart and with your entire being and with all your might.

I like to put this one up because the Amplified Bible takes the words we read in other translations and gives us synonyms to help us understand

Mind/heart

I think the pidgin does that two because we have three things we are supposed to love with Our mind or heart, and pidgin makes it even more clear. “Wit eryting how you tink.” Think on love and you will love.

THINK/Tink

In contrast, think on hate and you will hate. How many times have we been treated poorly or yelled at and our response is to yell right back. I do it, you do. But what if we took the posture of love. In your mind, before you speak, LOVE. I’ve been in situations, recently where I had to decide before hand to think Love. And I’ll tell you something. When you think Love, people see it and even if they don’t respond in kind, they walk away knowing you acted different.

We also have

Soul

This is a tough one because your soul is not something you see. This is where amplified and pidgin really help.

Your entire being/wit eryting dat stay inside you

This is how you use your think, your mind. If you choose to think love, then you will feel love.

If you choose to think hate, you will feel hate.

Let me ask you, if you had a blood pressure cuff taking your blood pressure when you are happy and relaxed what kind of blood pressure will you have, barring other health issues of course?

Low, right.

And if you are angry and filled with hate?

High, correct.

When you love, your body is better, it will work better than if you are one who lives in anger and hate.

And if you don’t believe me on that one look at people are the same age who live with anger and then those who live with love. You will see a difference, I promise you.

Might/Strength

Okay, this one might be straight forward for some, but maybe not everyone

Amplified thinks it’s straight forward enough to use might, but pidgin.

Wit all yoa powa

What does this mean? If you are thinking love, then you are feeling love, and you therefore DO love.

Okay, yeah that’s pretty straight forward.

But circling back to what we learn from Jesus and 1 John. If I say, sure I love God, but I don’t like people. Am I doing that Love?

And if I’m not doing that Love am I feeling that Love?

And if I’m not feeling that Love am I thinking that Love?

Jesus says that Loving God is our number one priority. And then he says that loving out neighbor is the same thing.

You can’t love God and not love people.

Can you love people and not want to be around them, though?

That is a great question. Because there are some people who live in hate and exercise that hate physically and hurt others.

YEs, LOVE them. Pray for them. Minister to them in whatever way is safe for you. But be safe. If I got beat up in the street, I’m not going to go over to the person’s house the next day and say, I Love You, let me tell you about Jesus. Nope, I’m pressing charges and writing them letters where they have a place to sit and listen. I’ll be safe. But I will still love.

Love comes in many languages I have two romantic translations of the Shema.

Spanish

Beautiful

French.

And I have one in a language that doesn’t sound as lovely

German.

Love is communicated in many ways.

In the world today, love means that we need to accept people no matter what and with that we call sins good and we say we love.

But that is not what love is.

Sometimes love is hard. Hearing love in spanish and french is lovely. Hearing it in German hurts the ears and the throat.

Sometimes love means telling someone else they are wrong. And then pointing them in the right direction. Will they listen? not always. But when you learn their heart language and start talking to them in love, they will start to hear.

You don’t have to learn greek or spanish or pidgin, though that one might be fun, in order to speak someones heart language.

All you have to do is spend time with them and learn what they love and love them.

If you know someone who is a rancher, learn about ranching and share the gospel in a way a rancher would understand.

On a harder side, do you know an addict? Learn their language. Not by participating in their sin, but learn what they think love is and show them better.

Making friends and loving them is a super easy way to share the gospel. It does take time. Some of us can get in front of thousands of people and share the gospel and thousands can come to Christ, but it’s you who brings them, it’s you who loves on them to make it possible to receive the love of Jesus.

And all you have to do it THINK love, FEEL love and DO love. ANd he will be with you.

Let’s Pray

Think of a person you need to learn their heart language. Commit to learning it and speaking it to them.