Sermon Tone Analysis

One time while on a family holiday, at a resort in Samoa, my parents and all of us adult children, well I would have been 17 and I’m the youngest of 4. We were reminded of our fathers rule over us all when the clock passed 10 pm, and we were all still up playing the card game of hearts in a room not too far from his.

My father comes marching over from his room informing us that the clock had passed the acceptable hour of noise and we were all to head straight to bed and sleep.

Ingrained in us was a fear of our father and the reminder of a life of his rules in his house.

Although we were far from home and not many of actually lived with him, as his children we all accepted his words and promptly headed for bed.

I’m sure we all have classic parent moments when you had to obey mum and dad, maybe you did all the time, maybe you didn’t.

This morning we are going to look at a command that our Father in heaven gives us in the book of Deuteronomy, the words written by Moses, in the time just before the people of Israel enter the promised land.

After 40 years of wandering in the Desert, God commands Moses to preach to the people one last time.

We are going to spend our time this morning at the beginning of this sermon of Moses in Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy is an interesting word, it’s a Greek word that literally means second giving of the law.

So it’s a good book to turn to when you study the ten commandments because this is Moses sermon about them.

Which is where we start today, in Deuteronomy 6 the beginning of the first commandment: Love the Lord your God.

This sermon will discuss the passage in four parts;

The Promise (1-3),

The Command (4-9),

The Means (the gospel),

The Assurance (10-12).

Seeing this passage as four parts will help us understand its application for our lives as Christians today.

As we look to Jesus and his work on the cross, we will turn the light of the Gospel onto the words of this Old Testament passage.

For it is in the Gospel we understand how this passage relates to us today.

Starting with the promise, Moses records this little preamble before he says one of the most famous verses for a Jewish family.

This preamble in verses 1-3 says quite a few things, but let’s follow closely what is being said.

Deuteronomy 6:1

Depending on your translation, you may get a plural in the word command or a singular, what Moses is referring to is the ten commandments as a whole.

Chapter 5 of Deuteronomy sets that context up for us as it retells the list of commands before Moses unpacks each one individually.

But here in the preamble Moses is referring to the collective ten.

That you “Israel” are to do them in the land which you are going.

Israel, these are the commands that you are to live by.

In verse two, Moses is stating the generational imperative of these commands.

Not just you, as the one who’s heard them today, but for your children, their children, and so on.

Just as God gives each of the covenants prior, he makes specific mention of the inclusion of the generations to follow.

He says to Abraham, Issac and Jacob that the blessings of his promise will be for their children.

God’s covenant here, is applied to the entire family.

That all may fear the lord your God as long as you shall live.

The focus of this sermon isn’t so must on this specific theme of the fear of God, that’s going to be drawn out in the next sermon that covers verses 13-25.

For now, note that a correct fear of God is achieved by keeping all his decrees and commands.

That is to say, the correct response to God is to keep his commands.

And all this is in order that it would go well with you.

In fact God’s concern for the well being of his people is the promise that is made alongside the instruction to obey his commands.

that it may go well for you.

That you would enjoy the fruits of the land that he has promised to give to you.

You see God cares about his people.

It’s funny when I think of my father telling us off for being loud and playing cards after 10pm.

My siblings and I have come to know that my dad is so keen on adventure that he wanted us to go to sleep because he wanted us to go and do lots of stuff the next day.

We couldn’t argue with that back then, we knew to listen to our father because we knew his heart was for our well being.

Moses is saying that, God knows what’s best for you.

He cares for you and wants you to be well.

Listen to him.

Obey his commands.

This is a promise from our father in heaven that responding through obedience will lead to well-being.

This is the first point of the passage today.

God’s promise of well-being through the obeying of his command is for you and your children.

And with that promise in Moses’ preamble to the greatest command our hearts should listen knowing that God cares for us.

As a note, well being is fine thing indeed, not to be confused with prosperity, God’s not saying in this preamble that you will be rich and famous.

He’s speaking of a life full of God’s blessings.

Which brings us to the command the second part of this passage.

This section of the passage is known as the Shema, this is the Hebrew word for the beginning of verse 4, Hear, O Israel, Shema simply means to hear.

That’s rather academic, so what’s important here is that God is making a stress on the importance of this command.

All of God’s word is for the people to listen to, it’s unnecessary to say listen to this because everything God says is worth listening to, so when the bible does say specifically that we are to listen, this is a stressed point, it’s like underlining words or putting them in bold.

Now if you were raised as a religious Jewish family you would know these words by heart by the time you were 4 years old.

This is a foundational statement of faith for the Jews.

The purpose of its recitation is primarily for unity and communal belonging to the covenant God.

Israelite families recite this because they belong to this community of God’s people.

Contextually, the Ancient Near Eastern world had a multitude of gods, each with their own influence and limitations that were worshiped in a variety of ways.

You see Israel was different.

They have one God.

Monotheism is the theological term you would use to say that.

God is making it very certain that everyone knows God is one.

The instructions within the Shema are profound indeed; they leave no room for allowing a priority in one’s life that is not God.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut 6:5).

These three words; heart, soul and might are deep and profound the more you unpack the meaning of each.

God is commanding a covenantal commitment that resonates out every fiber of ones being.

There is nothing left that one can have or own that one can keep to themselves if one is to submit to the God of Israel.

The implication is that the command to love God is to be written on the heart and bound to the body.

This is the greatest command...

I can say that because Jesus that said when a Jewish man wanted to know how to inherit the kingdom of God.

You see the all encompassing nature of this command is beyond just words of a faithful follower of God.

To love God with your ‘might’ is the essence of one’s energy output, that is the use of resources you own, the economic nature of your work, the social aspect of your life or your physical ability to do stuff.

That is your family, house, and workplace; everything is to be devoted to God.

Thus spoken as a daily prayer, the faithful Israelite is reminded each day to place God above all else in their life.

God goes on to say Deuteronomy 6:6-9

God even gives the instruction for how to raise children in the faith.

This is good news and it’s what’s largely fueled my convictions to work as a next generation worker.

I’m a father to a young family and so I’m particularly interested in what scripture has to say on the subject.

But more so, I’m a member of Grace Community Church and so all of the kids here are my children in Christ as they are yours.

So everyone should be interested in the raising of children even if only for the point that God chose to say this directly after the command to love him.

So let’s see what God says.

The NIV gives a helpful word for understanding this section, slightly different from the ESV or the KJV, one word but it gives a clearer picture of the emphasis of this passage.

That word is “Impress.”

The NIV uses the term impress upon your children.

The others use the term teach.

Don’t get me wrong teach is a great word, but if you compare it to impress, you must know that teaching is more than simply speaking words.

Impressing upon someone is more akin to discipleship, and using all of life as a lesson in the first commandment, the way you love and express joy, the way you celebrate and relax, the way you discipline and vent anger.

All features of your life are moments to impress or teach the children what it means to follow God.

God gives an extensive list of how all encompassing this task is.

When you talk and walk, when you wake and lie down.

Bind them, be front-lets, write them on doorposts on the house and the gate.

That’s really to say, everywhere you are, everything you own, you must declare your devotion to the Lord God.

Your entire life as a parent is to be a lesson of devotion to God for your children to witness.

That is to say Discipleship is foundational to God’s design for a family.

And the same goes for the church family.