Deuteronomy 6:4-9 – Conclusion

“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 doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

The Deuteronomy 6 passage above is one of the most important passages of scripture in the Bible.  It addresses the core of our being, the very nature of how God wants us to live our lives as followers of Him.  It can only be fully understood and applied in light of Jesus the Messiah, the Word become flesh, the Lamb of God.  Trying to understand and apply this verse without Him is like trying to drive a car that doesn’t have a steering wheel – basically a wreck just waiting to happen.  Jesus is the key to this passage of scripture.  He is the decoder ring that explains the passage to us in a way that will truly transform our lives and give us the close relationship with God that we all ultimately desire.

The Written Word of God

When this passage is understood without Jesus, we tend to focus on ourselves and how we are doing at it.  We could almost give ourselves a grade each week or each month on how we are getting along.  If we are doing well at following the commands of the verse, we will become prideful and arrogant, like the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus day.  If we are not doing so well at it, we will become disappointed, disillusioned, and may even quit trying to follow God’s commands altogether for fear of failure.

The Living Word of God

But when we understand the verse in light of Jesus as being the “Word” in this passage, the entire focus changes and we move out of the fear and pride paradigm and into the love and gratitude paradigm.  We quit looking at ourselves so much and we start looking at Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.  When we look at our children, we are not so much focused on what and how they are doing, but rather on what is Jesus doing in their lives, and how is that going?  The same is true for everyone in our lives.  Rather than focusing on them, we focus on what Christ is doing in them, where they are today in Christ, etc.  The difference is dramatic.

Hear

The passage starts by telling us to listen to God.  To truly “hear” Him.  This is where a godly life begins, hearing from God.  Hearing in the Biblical sense includes taking in the information, believing the information, and acting on the information.  This is what it means to hear.  Jesus was constantly saying, “He who has and ear to hear, let him hear”.  Until we are willing to listen to God, honestly listen to what He has to say, there is no hope for us, and we are a fool.  It is that simple.

Followers of God

Then the passage explains that the message is to those who belong to and are following God.  At the time that Moses wrote it, the message was directed at Israel, during their deliverance from slavery in Egypt and as they moved through the wilderness and into the promised land.  Today, the message is directed at Christians, as they are delivered from slavery to sin, and move through the wilderness and into the promised land of Christian living.

One God

Then comes the climax of the great Sh’ma.  The Lord is God, and He is the only one true God.  There are no other true gods – they are all false and cannot deliver.  If we have other gods, they will pull us away from the one true God.  He tells us that to live life successfully, to do it right, we can only have the one true God.  Any additional Gods we add to the mix will enslave us eventually and destroy us ultimately.  The history of Israel bears this out, as does the lives of men who have been shipwrecked by giving in to false gods in recent times – just think of the men whose ministries have been destroyed because they gave in to money or had an affair. Following after other gods simply does not work.  Slavery and destruction always results when we live for false gods.  Jesus warned us that “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”  (Matthew 6:24) One God.

Love God

Next we read the greatest commandment in the Bible – to love God with all of our heart, soul, and might.  We see that to truly do this requires that we be repentant and humble in heart and spirit.  If we are proud and unrepentant, we cannot love God.  We feel God owes us for the life we have lived for Him.  If we do not recognize the depravity that is in us and how deep it runs, we likely will not even give God the time of day, much less love Him.  The Psalmist states that “God is near to the broken hearted and saves those with a crushed spirit” (Psalm 34:18), and that God will not despise “a broken and a contrite heart.” (Psalm 51:17).  God reveals Himself to the humble (Isaiah 66:2), but is opposed to the proud. (James 4:6) Those who realize they have been forgiven much, love much.  Those who do not realize they are in need of forgiveness, love little if at all.  This is the key to loving God – realizing how messed up we are and how much He has forgiven us.

It is interesting that we are commanded to love God.  This implies that it is not natural for man to love God.  We naturally love our children, our pets, our hobbies, ourselves, etc. – God does not have to command us to love them.  But God knows that we are going to struggle with loving Him sometimes.  There is an awful lot of evil in the world, for example.  How can God allow this?  Evil may have even happened directly to us, or to someone we love.  How could God allow this to happen, we ask?  The answer to this question is a good subject for another discussion.  But the point here is that God knows we are going to struggle to love Him, and so the commandment is given for us to do so.  And when we get to the next verse, we find the answer of how to truly love God with all of our heart, soul, and might.

The Word Became Flesh and Dwelt Among Us

In verse 6 we are introduced to the ‘Word of God’.  In John chapter one, we read: 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”
John 1:1-5

When we understand that Jesus is the embodiment of the phrase “these words” in the Deuteronomy 6 passage, and we comprehend the passage with that in mind, the passage simply explodes with new meaning and understandings.  We are instructed to apply the ‘Word’ of God to our heart, the doorpost of our house, just as the Israelites were told at the first Passover to put the blood of the sacrificial lamb on the doorposts of their house.  In both cases, the blood of the sacrificial lamb keeps the angel of death away, and death passes over us.  The Passover story is quite possibly the central story of the Old Testament.  Its culmination and ultimate fulfillment is found in Jesus.  Jesus is the official Passover Lamb who takes away the sins of the entire world.

“The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
John 1:29

Eternal Life is Yours in Christ

Whoever wants the angel of death to pass over them merely has to apply the blood of the lamb, the Word made flesh, Jesus, to their heart.  We do this by believing in Jesus.  This is crazy talk to those who are perishing, but it is the very salvation of God to those who are being saved.  Anyone who fears death need only repent and believe the gospel.  It is that simple. Even a five year old can do it.  And the invitation is to all.

Teach Our Children

Next God stresses the importance of teaching our children to know Him.  Religion is for adults – it is hard, requires discipline and effort, and only the strong are able to keep it up for any length of time, certainly not most children.  But the way of the cross is easy.  Faith in Christ can be had by anyone.  It does not require great effort or discipline to believe in Jesus, and technically that is all that is required for entrance into the kingdom of God.  When we believe in Him, we are born again. 

The quality of our Christian walk will be determined by how well we follow Him, which does require effort and discipline, but we are born again either way, whether our walk is fruitful, like the apostle Paul or Mother Teresa, or not so fruitful, like an alcoholic who becomes born again, but the addiction is just too strong and he is never able to overcome it.  He is still born again, but his life as a Christian on earth was less than stellar.  It is because our entrance into the Kingdom of God rests on the finished work of Christ, not on anything that we do, that this understanding of Jesus being the Word in Deuteronomy 6 is so important.  We must teach this to our children, among the many other things God has in His word that He wants us to teach them.

“Train up a child in the way he should go,
Even when he is old he will not depart from it.” 
Proverbs 22:6

Christian Transformation

Finally we are told four final things – to share (speak) the Word, to act on the Word, to set our minds on the Word, and to remember Word.  By speaking God’s word we release it into the world to do it’s work. By acting on the Word we prove to be doers rather than hearers only who are deluded – our faith is made real. By setting our minds on the Word we focus on the things above rather than the things on earth and avoid falling into the trap of serving idols. And by remembering the Word God we are able to stay the course and finish life strong.

These are some of the keys to successful Christian living, to moving into the promised land and remaining there.  And of the four, remembering is the linchpin, for if we forget God, forget to love Him, our world comes tumbling down like a house of cards when the table is shaken.  We must always remember from where we came, our sinful past, and how much we have been forgiven.  We must remember what Christ has done in our lives.  We must remember answered prayers.  We must remember God’s written word.  We must remember to set our minds on the things above.  Remember to stay free from idols.  Remember to love others. Etc, etc., etc. 

I could go on for pages on the things it is good and helpful for us to remember. There is so much that Christ has done for us and called us to.  So much wisdom in God’s word.  By remembering, our faith is held in place, and we do not fall away in our walk. We stay on course to the end, and our lives and the lives of those around us are blessed. We obtain and maintain the peace and joy of Christ.

The Holy Spirit

God knows that we struggle remembering things, and Jesus told us when He was here that He would give us a helper, the Holy Spirit, who would help us with this very thing:

“These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”
John 14:25-26

God has even provided for this as well, helping us to remember what He has said to us.  The Holy Spirit helps us in many ways, sealing us in Christ when we are born again, and leading and guiding us for the rest of the days of our lives as believers.  Amazing.

Pen Pals

In years past, people would be pen pals.  They would write letters back and forth to each other from different cities, getting to know one another over a long period of time.  Often they would decide to meet eventually, after exchanging letters for years or even decades.  At the end of a person’s relationship with their pen pal, they would have a pile of letters from their pen pal.  The Old Testament can be thought of as a pile of pen pal letters from God.

God’s Visit

And at one point, God came to visit us, in the form of His Son, Jesus.  Like a pen pal visit, it was brief.  But He was here, and He explained Himself to us pretty clearly.  To try to understand Deuteronomy 6:4-9 using only the Old Testament, would be like trying to know a pen pal from only the letters they wrote you.  But when we include God’s visit, in the form of His Son Jesus the Messiah, and all that we learned from Him, Deuteronomy 6:4-9 really comes alive, and we can more fully understand it and appreciate it.  It has the power to transform our understanding of God and make our walk with Him full of peace and joy.  We can know Him more fully.  Our life can be more focused on Him rather than being inward focused on ourselves.  We rely on Christ’s exploits rather than our own, setting us free from the fear and pride paradigm that rules when Christ is not present in our lives.  We can live in the love and gratitude paradigm of life with Christ.

“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 doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
Deuteronomy 6:4-9

What an amazing passage of scripture.  There is much more that could be said, but this is a start.

May God continue the work in you that He began, and may He finish it, making you complete in Christ.  May you hear God, truly hear Him.  May you only have one God, and never serve idols or fall into their traps.  May you know the depth of your sin and depravity, and out of that knowledge find the capacity to love God with all of your heart, strength, and might.  May the ‘Word’ of God, Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior, be applied to your heart, making you forever His, and granting you eternity in heaven with Him.  And may God’s written word be hidden in your heart and mind, that you do not sin against Him.  May you teach God’s word to your children, and teach them to know the ‘Word’ of God, Jesus Christ, and establish their own relationship with Him.  May you always speak of God whether at home or away, sharing Christ with all.  May God and His ‘Word’ be the last thing on your mind when you go to bed, and the first thing on your mind when you awake.  May all of your actions be led by His Holy Spirit, and may your mind be set on the things above, and not on the things that are on earth.  May you set up daily reminders in your life, so that you will remember God, His ‘Word’ Christ Jesus, and His written word, all the days of your life.  In Jesus name I pray.  Amen.

“We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.”
Colossians 1:28

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.’”
Revelation 2:7

 “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”
Revelation 3:19-22

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heav’nly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Doxology, by Bishop Thomas Ken

Glory to God.