About this sermon
Deuteronomy 6 calls Israel to love the Lord with all the heart, soul, and might, and to keep his words on their hearts and teach them to their children at home and on the road. The law was never a merely external code; Moses already looked for a circumcised heart, and the prophets promised a new covenant written on the heart. Christ alone kept that great commandment perfectly, and in him God’s people learn to love God and one another, as Colossians 3 describes.
Sermon transcript
Begin at chapter 6, verse 1. I’m going to read through verse 9 of Deuteronomy 6. Give your attention, for this is the Word of God. Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments, which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is 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.
These words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons 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. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates.
And turning over to Jeremiah chapter 31. And beginning with verse 31. Jeremiah 31, 31. Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, And I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord.
I will put my law within them, and on their heart I will write it. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. They will not teach again each man his neighbor, and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. I will remember no more. And then turning over again to Colossians chapter 3 in the New Testament. Colossians chapter 3 beginning with verse 12.
So as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.
Beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom, teaching, and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. Thus far, the reading of God’s inspired, infallible word.
Let’s pray together, shall we? Our Father, we come together as your people, confessing our need of your grace, our need of your spirit to open the word of truth to us, that we might see it and understand it and believe it, that we might, oh God, act upon it. We pray, Father, that the things that we read, things that were spoken of old that have come to pass now in the days of Jesus Christ would be written upon our hearts and that we, oh God, would rise up then as the Church of Christ to love you and serve you and honor you, to encourage one another, to bless one another, that being filled with the spirit of the living Jesus, raised from the dead and seated in glory, coming again to receive his own to himself. O Lord, hear our prayers of thanks. Bless them, the preaching and the hearing of your word today, that we might receive it as it is, the word of the living God, we pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
The great commandment given to Israel and to us is to love God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, which means with your whole self, your whole being, including your rationality, your mental capacity, your moral choices, your will and willing, your inner feelings and desires, and the deepest roots of your life. Everything belongs to the God who loved you and gave his son Jesus Christ for you. In Deuteronomy chapter 6 as Moses speaks on behalf of God he speaks of loving God with all of your heart and with all of your soul. in the great Shema of Deuteronomy chapter six, verses four and five. And there, Moses, on behalf of God, adds a third remarkable term, and with all your might, with all your strength, it says.
Literally, as we said in our last sermon two weeks ago, it means something like, and with all your very muchness, you might recall that commentary, This word, everywhere else used, is used as an adverb. But here, and when used as an adverb, it means greatly or exceedingly. But here in Deuteronomy 6, verse 5, Moses uses that word to speak that is translated as the word strength. He uses it as a noun in its own right. It’s open to various translations of which strength or might are the most common translations. But as we commented also, the early Jewish versions translated it as your substance.
With all your substance, all your possessions might be an acceptable connotation. which indeed might very well lie behind what Jesus teaches about laying up treasures in heaven of the woman who gave her two mites and gave her whole life, as it were, in service of God. Laying up treasure, serving God rather than serving mammon.
And that commentary, that idea may also get at the heart of Mark chapter 12, verses 28 and following. where Jesus is asked by one of the scribes, what commandment is the foremost of all? And Jesus responds by reciting the Shema, those words from Deuteronomy 6, 4, and 5, saying, the foremost of all is, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your mind, Jesus says, and with all your strength. The second, he says, is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. All your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.
And so then, having dealt primarily in our last sermon with verses four and five of Deuteronomy 6, Today, I’m asking that we would focus on verses 6 through 9. Deuteronomy 6, verses 6 through 9. According to the words spoken by Moses, the love for the Lord must show itself in the zealous keeping of, quote, these words which I am commanding you today. That is the demands proclaimed by God and presented to the people by Moses, both before and after this statement in verse six. In other words, the words which I’m commanding you in this great end of 40 year wilderness wandering statement that Moses is delivering in the book of Deuteronomy to the people.
These commands, this word, which I’m speaking to you today, you shall keep them. Keep them zealously. And these commandments, he says, are to be, quote, upon your heart. Heart here again. The idea of loving God with all your heart. These commandments are to be upon your heart. Heart referring more specifically in a Hebrew sense to the seat of thought and memory in the inner being of a person. What we know and think and the mind set as it were, but also of that connotation of love, of loving God with emotion and affection and a willingness and a desire. that these commands which I am commanding you today are to be upon your heart.
This law, this command, these demands were not just for the King of Israel, not just for the priests, not just for the prophets, it was for everyone. It was to be in the heart as well as in the head, in the home as well as in the courts. and the verses that are before us in verses six through nine powerfully dispel two misconceptions. The first misconception is that Old Testament law was a matter of legalistic conformity to an external code. A lot of people think of the law, think of the Old Testament in those terms as externals, as laws, laws that were given simply requiring legalistic conformity.
But on the contrary, Deuteronomy 6 verse 6 is part of a strong stream of Old Testament teaching that calls for the internalizing of the law, in the heart that is. at the center of a person’s mind and will and character. Not just doing it because God says do it and keeping the outward externals of the law, but it is to be in the embrace of the mind and the heart and the will.
Deuteronomy 4 verse 9 teaches, only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently. lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life, but make them known to your sons and grandsons.” Deuteronomy 4, 9. In other words, Israel was to hold on to these things diligently, internalizing them. They were to keep them in their heart and to pass them on to their children and their children’s children. In Deuteronomy chapter 10, verse 16, Moses will speak of circumcising the foreskin of your heart. Speaking of a people being totally given to and set apart for the Lord.
Deuteronomy 10.16. In other words, the idea of just like there was circumcision of the flesh for the sons and grandsons of Israel, so there was in Moses’ mindset in the Word of God, a circumcising of the heart. that you would take away that which is an obstacle to God and give yourself totally and fully to God. And that theme, those kinds of themes are picked up repeatedly by the prophets that come after Moses. The great hope for Israel and for the sons of Israel was for a renewed heart, that their heart would be made new, totally devoted to the Lord. And so even that very language of the circumcision of the heart is a theme picked up again and again.
Well, one of those misconceptions then of the Old Testament is that it’s just a legalistic code. Whereas it in fact it is indeed very much the Old Testament matter, a matter of the heart. But a second misconception that folk have about the Old Testament is that religious traditions and observances are the preserve of a professional elite. a special religious class, a chosen few. In other words, we think of the Pharisees or we think of the scribes and we think of, well, they were the really religious people and the laws were really for the really religious. Well, we have it today, of course, in various constructs, both in Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, where people think that spirituality or religiosity belongs to a chosen few, a special clerical status, or a certain academic, members of academia. Well, in fact, the priests of Israel were indeed to teach the law. but not to teach it as something that only they within the confines of their professional guild could understand. On the contrary, the law was to be the topic of ordinary conversation, in ordinary homes, in ordinary life, from breakfast to bedtime.
In Deuteronomy 30 verse 11 and following, Moses writes, For this commandment, which I command you today, is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. It’s not in heaven that you should say, who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it. Nor is it beyond the sea that you should say, who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it. But the word, Moses says, is very near you. It is in your heart, in your mouth, and in your heart that you may observe it.
The law was accessible and near. Such was its scope and relevance. Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 6 through 9 dispels the misconception that the law and religiosity was for a chosen few of Israel. the elitist. Notice the language of Deuteronomy 6, 6-9.
This was something they were to teach, they were to speak of it, when they walked along the way, when they rose up, when they sat down, when they were in their homes, when they were out in the streets. along the way. They were to teach it to their children continually.
It was to be the topic of their discussion in everyday life and everyday circumstances. And moreover, this love for God was not some sort of secretive devotion, some sort of purely private relationship which didn’t really concern anybody else but you and God, so to speak. But from the start, it was to involve the element of public confession as well as personal allegiance. First, this loving devotion to the Lord was to be shared in the home.
These God-given truths must not only be taught by Moses to Israel, but by every parent in Israel. So that children and grandchildren will learn and keep all His decrees and His commandments. Parents were to impress this word on their children’s minds and to make it the subject of natural, everyday conversation within family life.
And you shall teach them diligently, he says, to your sons. And you 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. continually in every circumstance of everyday life. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, this text says, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. And you shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on the gates of your cities. Once again, Here, those verbs in rapid sequence, helping us to feel the force of the exhortation. Teach them diligently, that is the commandments. Talk of them, bind them, write them.
The law of God was to be applied to the individual. It was to be the reference to your hand. The things that you do, the things you put your hand to, there is the command of God that you would fulfill it. It was to be on your forehead as if this is what I see, this is what I see all the time, this is what I’m looking at, this is what I’m thinking about, all the time, when I rise up, when I sit down, when I go in, when I go out, when I meet with my children along the way.
And it was to be not only on your doorpost, which is suggesting your own family house situation, but they were to be on the gates of your city. And so the law of God was not only your family and your house, but the public civic society. The gates were where the elders sat in the cities to judge. The gates were where commerce was carried out on a day-to-day basis. The gates is where the civic authorities met and made their decisions for what was going on in Israel.
The Israelite was to work out the meaning of loving God in appropriate ways for all these levels of self and family and society, the individual, the Israelite families, the Israelite community, the people of God. These were the commands that God encourages them, exhorts them to put in their hearts, and to love the Lord their God with all of their heart and with all of their soul with very muchness. The love commitment of the whole person in verse five is thus expanded to the whole community in verses seven through nine. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.
You do that. but also let it be for all Israel. Verse seven tells the Israelites to teach these commandments to their sons and to talk about them everywhere and always. This serves to instruct the children, but it is not limited to this instruction. You don’t always have the children with them along the road. The point is rather that the Israelites are to keep these commandments alive in their everyday thoughts, to remind themselves and others of them. The commandments were to be the subject of conversation, both inside and outside the home, from the beginning of the day to the end of the day. While not exactly identical, there is a similarity in the words of Proverbs 6, verses 20 to 23, where the writer of Proverbs says, my son, observe the commandment of your father. Do not forsake the teaching of your mother. Bind them continually on your heart. Tie them around your neck. When you walk about, they will guide you. When you sleep, they will watch over you. And when you awake, they will talk to you. When you are awake, they will talk to you. For the commandment, the proverb says, is a lamp, and the teaching is a light.
In summary, then, the commandments were to permeate every sphere of the life of God’s covenant people, really and truly as an expression of the people’s love for Yahweh, the Lord, their God. The injunctions given in Deuteronomy 6, verses 8 and 9 continue to emphasize the important role the commandments were to play in the life of the people.
It’s uncertain whether those verses were intended to be taken literally in their initial context, or whether they are simply primarily metaphorical. In either case, whether they had the intent of being literally taken or not, Historically, they came to be taken literally during the course of Jewish history. The commandments tied as a sign on the hand or as frontlets on your forehead was in time interpreted by Israel as a warrant for the use of what was called a phylactery, which was in fact a little small container that enclosed a parchment, and on the parchment were a number of Bible verses, biblical texts from Exodus and Deuteronomy.
So you’re carrying the word of God around on your hand, and you’re carrying the word of God around on your forehead. Similarly, the injunction to write the commandments on the doorpost and the gates came to be interpreted literally. And the mezuzah, as it came to be called, was a small box that you had containing a parchment on your door post and on the gates. And so you look inside and you open the parchment again.
There is the Bible verses, if you were to quote them. Well, whether those injunctions of Deuteronomy 6, 7 through 9 were meant to be taken literally or not, is it not absolutely clear that figuratively They denote an undeviating observance of the divine commandments.
The commandments were to be in front of the people all the time in every place. And you think of Psalm 1 of the righteous man who meditates on the law of God day and night. Well, that was the command. That was the command given by Yahweh to his people to meditate on those commandments day and night in every circumstance of life. To be understood spiritually as to that which is pleasing to God.
Keeping the commandments in the heart, in the soul, in every circumstance, in every way, in every day. and the rising up and the sitting down and the going out and the coming in. In the market and in the house and in the courts and in the places of business wherever you were as an Israelite you were to love God and love Him with all your heart and soul with all your very muchness. The eye of covenant faith was to be directed clearly and continually to Yahweh and to the keeping and the doing of His commandments.
And as we read such things and hear such things, and as we think of the phylacteries and the references that came about later in time to such things, we cannot help but think of Jesus’ warnings against the scribes and the Pharisees, the professional religious who prided themselves in their outward religiosity. My phylactery is bigger than your phylactery. Or it’s newer, it’s shinier. As Jesus say, they broaden their phylacteries, they lengthen the tassels on their garments, an exaggeration to be sure, but Jesus is basically saying they do what they do to be seen by men. practicing their piety, even their prayers. They stand in the synagogue and on street corners where they’ll be seen and heard and they make a show of religious devotion.
But at the root of it, Jesus is saying they deprive God of his due. They lay burdens on others, but they won’t lift a finger to help. They refuse to humble themselves and to serve, whereas Jesus says, if you would become great, become the servant of all. Love your neighbor as yourself. Beloved, as we hear these things and we hear Jesus’ indictment of Pharisaical religion, we consider Old Testament, Old Covenant Israel. And we ask the question, how did Old Covenant Israel fare in keeping the Great Commandment?
Though the Lord had brought them out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, Maybe their hand was supposed to remind them of God’s hand. Though the Lord God had brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, though He Himself, Yahweh, had become a husband to this people, taking them in their awfulness and sin and making them His people, though He showed them many great and wonderful signs, how did they do in keeping the commandments with their heart and soul? and with all their very muchness.
How easily they forgot. How readily they forsook the way of the Lord. How quickly they turned to other gods. No matter how dramatically the Lord had spoken his commandments at Sinai. You remember. We don’t want to hear that anymore. You Moses speak to us. No matter how clearly Moses and the prophets spoke the commands of God. or how often they repeated the warnings of God’s judgment against disobedience, no matter how much blood of lambs and bulls and goats and lambs and bulls and goats and lambs and bulls and goats was shed, the glory of that Old Testament covenant priesthood, the glory of the tabernacle, the greater glory still of Solomon’s temple, all of these did not avail.
For all of those things of necessity pointed beyond themselves to the greater need for a new and a better covenant. Not like the covenant which the Lord made with the fathers of the house of Israel when he took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, the covenant which they broke. I’m quoting Jeremiah 31. not like the covenant which they broke despite God’s kindnesses to them. The Lord in Jeremiah 31, 31 to 34 speaks of that new and better covenant that God would make with his people by which he would put his law within them, notice, and write it on their hearts.
He would do it. He would write it there. The Lord there does not simply, does not simply promise a greatness which they had and fumbled and lost, but he promises something far better, something far more excellent. The commandment to write, to hold these things and keep them in your hearts and to love God with all your heart. Here comes the pronouncement, I’m going to write it on your heart. And we hence see that this passage necessarily, says John Calvin, necessarily, Jeremiah 31, necessarily points to Jesus and to the coming of a better kingdom. For without Christ, nothing could or ought to have been hoped for by such a people.
What is there better than the law of God? What better help could he have given them than all of the commandments, and all of the markers, and all of the symbols, and all of the types, and all of the shadows, and all of the things that he did, and all of the things that he showed them in the old covenant? What could he have done better? And the answer? Jesus. Jesus. One who would keep the commandment with all of his heart, mind, and soul, and strength.
Though the law was a perfect rule, a perfect doctrine of what God had revealed to his people, yet the law in all of its glory could in itself not solve the problem of sin in sinners such as Israel was and such as you and I are. But God, but God who is rich and faithful in mercy has brought to bear that new and better covenant. God made a new covenant when he accomplished through his son whatever had been shadowed forth under the law of old covenant history. For the ceremonies and the sacrifices could not of themselves satisfy God’s just demands.
It is only in Christ, only in the working of the Holy Spirit in regeneration and in sanctification wherein we are made alive to God so that obedience is rendered to the great commandment because the commandment has been written upon us by Christ and by His Spirit. Not the law written as a sign on the hand or on the forehead or on the doorposts We’re on the gates. In redemption, God is pleased to write his law on the hearts of his people, wherein a true and spiritual reformation is accomplished to the praise of the glory of his grace in Jesus.
Not what we have done, but what he has done in us and for us. It is in this that He is truly our God and that we are truly His people, loving Him and doing what He commands. And so it is, beloved, the reference that I offer you from the text in Colossians 3 that we read this morning. Colossians 3, 12 through 17.
So as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, listen, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another, forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.
And beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God, so that whatever you do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. Whatever you do, in word or deed, do all, everything, everything. When you get up, when you go to bed, when you go out the street, when you go to bed, when you take your children for a walk, when you go to the playground, when you go to school, when you go to the workplace, when you brush your teeth, when you talk to your wife, whatever you do, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. giving thanks to God the Father through him.
I want you to hear real briefly Colossians 3 verse 12, put on a heart of compassion. Verse 15, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. And then verse 16, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Do you hear it? God said, I will write it on your heart. And that’s exactly what he’s done in Jesus Christ. asking you then to take notice of that threefold reference in the short little passage of what it means to have your hearts made new in Jesus. Hearts in which God has worked his perfect peace. Hearts on which God has written his commandments by the word of Christ. Hearts made new in Jesus.
Jesus, the Father, the Spirit, he who is our God, and we who are his covenant people. Love the Lord your God in Christ with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your strength and love your neighbor as yourselves. This is the great commandment. Let’s pray together. Heavenly Father, fill us with the joy and the zeal of Jesus. Teach us that we are that new covenant people made alive with hearts renewed. Hearts that have been renewed by the working of God who has written his commands upon those hearts.
That we should love God and that we should love one another. As the people of God in the church then, oh Father, let us rise up and call you blessed. Let us go about our lives in everyday happenings, oh God. with a spirituality that belongs from the least to the greatest. And let us prove greatness not by acting great, but let us prove greatness by becoming the least of all, serving one another with devotion, patience, and kindness, forgiveness, even as Christ has loved us and forgiven us. We pray now in Jesus’ name.
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