The Love in Our Verses
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 6 viewsNotes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Love Month
Love Month
Last month we worked on recentering, reigniting and ultimately remembering our first love. When we started to plan out this series we were doing some deep thinking and Nohan or Marcos brought up the idea to preach on our favorite verses. It can be easy to forget sometimes that God really does speak to us through his printed word. We can forget that he uses these things to ignite our souls. So that when we’re in a valley moment, we can remember the mountain top.
A lot of times our verses have become our verses because they met us in the valley and were our guide to the top. If you’re on the stream, please feel free to share your favorite verse with us in the comments and ith someone that’s with you! If you’re in person, don’t, JK, share your favorite verse or story of the bible with someone that’s with you.
“Hear, O Israel: 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. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 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.
In all honesty, it was a fight between this verse and John 4:23-24
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
As a worship leader and self proclaimed theology geek, I could’ve gone either way with it, since they have both been impactful to my worship of God and how I experience him in my life. Something I noticed also is that both sets of verses are seemingly instructional. they teach something of how we encounter God and what he is looking for. But, it’s also about what sets these verses up that’s equally important.
I Am He
I Am He
Something I love about how God sets up instruction portions of scripture is how informs and then sets the expectation. Our verses today are an expounding or an explanation of a command that God gave earlier.
‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
These are the words he says just before giving the ten commandments. He reminds them of his faithfulness in their valley. He reminds them of the hell they were in before saying “this is who I am and this is how a relationship with me is going to work.”
Cool side note: When we did our wednesday night series on Journey to the promise land We walked through the Ten Commandments. Something we learned during that time is that the Law can be split into two over arching themes, vertical and horizontal. Vertical is referring to that upwards relationship we have with God and horizontal is referring to that side to side relationship we have with eachother. Though there are more horizontal commands we learned from Jesus that the greatest of these is:
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.’
Granted, in this instance Jesus is quoting these verses in ordered to answer the questions of some stiff necked teachers.
Your God is One
Your God is One
First thing is first, God is one and he sets himself apart from the rest of the gods in Israel’s time of liberation and the captivity that they came from. While other nations worshipped many gods, Israel will be marked by the worship of one God as well. This is as true today as it was back then. There are so many things that are trying to compete for our attention and time that maybe sometimes they can become lower case g gods. I know we may not think of it that way because we don’t live in a time of mythology where Zeus or a pharaoh are proclaimed or proclaiming to be god. But things or people can become gods in our lives when ascribe greater worth to them than God.
Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.
There are people worthy of honor, God tells us to honor people, but when we lift them and other things up higher in priority in our lives is when we break the first commandment. This is why on Sundays when I lead us through confession together I bring that up, that God may forgive us of our idol worship, people or objects. The greatest worth belongs to who? God.
So when we see “Hear, o Israel: the LORD our God, The LORD is one..” There are a few things I want to point out.
Often called the Shema, from the initial Hebrew word meaning “hear,” this verse is the great confession of Israel’s monotheistic faith, and to this day it is recited morning and evening by Jews (cf. Mark 12:29). See note on 5:1.
Next is this idea of One. We are trinitarian and believe that we can even see the trinity at work in the bible. Though we believe that the trinity is 3 persons, we still believe that it is one God as we learned in last month’s series, Our First Love. This Idea of oneness isn’t just about God being one being, but also that he’s set apart and different from the gods of their time and also set apart and different from us. His moral holiness and his otherness.
Matt Redman- christianity today
Otherness gives us a sense that God is so pure, matchless and unique that no one else and nothing else even comes close. He is altogether glorious—unequalled in splendor and unrivalled in power. He is beyond the grasp of human reason—far above the reach of even the loftiest scientific mind. He is inexhaustible, immeasurable and unfathomable—eternal, immortal and invisible.
I want to continue on this journey of explaining the holiness and otherness of God, but I’ll give you two powerful resources that have been my fave so far. The Holiness of God by RC Sproul, and a more recent book that I just started reading named Holier Than Thou, by Jackie Hill Perry.
Heart, Soul, Might
Heart, Soul, Might
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
So, what does it mean to love the LORD with all your heart, soul and might? I’m glad you asked.
In scripture the term heart is used a couple different ways, but ultimately it is used to describe the decision center of our being. This is where our emotions and logic come together for the final product of decision making, the seat of the will, whether free or bound.
Next we consider the soul. A Hebrew understanding of the word ně·p̄ěš(nephesh), or soul in English, depends on the context. In this case it is not the same thing as when we think about saving the soul of a person now, but this is related to our actual lives, our being, our essence. So when we read here to love God with our souls we can think of it as in Romans 12:1
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
Lastly, we consider our might. In the NT it is presented as this Idea of mind and strength. In the hebrew it expresses totality, all of who we are.
This is the language of devotion. God demands not mere outward obedience to His commands but the heartfelt love and commitment of the whole person (Prov. 23:26)
Maybe you’re thinking what I was thinking. Why 3 words that express similar sentiments? Just like with Isaiah 6 and revelation where the heavenly beings cried out “holy, holy, holy”, the combination of these 3 is again expressing the completeness that God is commanding and deserving of. He is deserving of being entirely worshipped and loved so deeply. He shows us His worth in all of scripture and all that he’s done for us.
Living For Him
Living For Him
God then gives us an example of what it looks like to live for him
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 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.
In these verses God shows us that it’s not about living from one extraordinary moment to another that provides this Life changing, all consuming love for God, but the ordinary everyday, week in and week out reminder of what God has done for us that produces this love.
There’s this video I watched, actually two, that expressed this sentiment really well. One spoke about how love doesn’t happen instantly, true love. It’s progressive and takes real time. It’s the day in and day out commitment to that person. Some times that means that maybe you had an amazing day at work and you come home and instead of talking about it right away, you sit and listen intently and compassionately to your partner as they talk about how bad their day was, and maybe not ever talking about your great day, but being there for them.
The second video presents this idea that it’s not just the grand gestures, but getting the daily things right and creating the right habits. Love comes from accumulation.
What God instructs us in this last section of our verses today is exactly this, except instead of us reminding God and being devoted to God daily to have him grow in love with us, it is us who grow in love with him. He teaches us how to be reminding ourselves and each other of his faithfulness and the great reward of our faithfulness is not salvation, because that is our foundation, but growing in knowledge and love of God.
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.
God's grace is the necessary foundation of our obedience.
Eric Watkins
Remember
Remember
Just like with Israel, we gather on Sundays to remember how God has saved us from our slavery, from our Egypt through the work of Christ for us. And what I just read in 1 John expresses this perfectly. Without Jesus we are in need of a saviour. With Jesus we are in need of reminders.
Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord [the only Lord].
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your [mind and] heart and with your entire being and with all your might.
And these words which I am commanding you this day shall be [first] in your [own] minds and hearts; [then]
You shall whet and sharpen them so as to make them penetrate, and teach and impress them diligently upon the [minds and] hearts of 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 up.
And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets (forehead bands) between your eyes.
And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
We have these amazingly powerful tools that we carry around in our hands and pockets that we can use as teaching tools when we wake, walk and rest. We have these amazing portable tools that we carry with us that we can use as frontlets and bindings for the the word of God. Something that we can use to conveniently read scripture as we’re leaving our shelter for the day. but so often we use this tool to ascribe worth to other things. We wake up and stare at our phones to see what someone may have posted overnight, we walk with our heads in our phones staring at others’ lives. We go to bed in whatever tiktok or reels can help us distract and rest.
Nohan reminded us of How God called two different people from different demographics and educational backgrounds, yet used them in the exact same way, in Peter and Paul. Marcos taught us of God’s grace and mercy when one of Israel’s greatest kings faltered.
I wand us to remember that We are called to Love God with our hearts, our souls and our might, because God is worthy, because it is the most fulfilling purpose of our lives and because those around us benefit from it. God transforms us by His Spirit, through His Word that reminds us of his faithfulness, not ours, but his. But even as I am challenging myself and you to a better use of our time and tools, we need to have grace with each other and ourselves
We understand, however, that the only one ever to have obeyed this command is Jesus. None of us, no matter how devoted we are to the Almighty, can live up to this high standard. We can always do more. We can always sacrifice more for His sake. Our failure to love Him as He has commanded is the reason why we need an atonement. We need the One who has loved God with His whole being to plead our case before our Creator. We need Christ to stand between us and the Father
TABLE TALK
so even as we fail to remember God, we have faith that he has done all that is necessary and ultimately he is doing the reminding in his word.
The love of God is greater far
than tongue or pen can ever tell;
it goes beyond the highest star,
and reaches to the lowest hell.
The wand'ring child is reconciled
by God's beloved Son.
The aching soul again made whole,
and priceless pardon won.
O Lord our God, grant us grace to desire Thee with our whole heart; that, so desiring, we may seek, and seeking find Thee; and so finding Thee may love Thee; and in loving Thee, may hate those sins from which Thou hast redeemed us.
Anselm of Canterbury