Loving God Starts With the Word (Deuteronomy 6:5-9)

All right, so yeah, again, picture of my family.

Yeah, awesome, awesome people. I'll tell them the in the first

service here, like so there's Hezekiah on the on the left.

He is our son and he is kind of surrounded by sisters.

He loves to eat and he loves to just explore different things.

He's the he's the person who's going to be so daring.

He's just all over the place. He's kind of a daddy's boy and a

daddy's girl and a mama's boy at the same time.

Like he loves daddy. He he kind of like starts to

talk, but he, he calls everybody dad just which is really funny,

like dad and that are his favorite words.

And then there's there's Zion in the middle on the bottom.

And she loves to learn. She loves art and things like

that. There's Shiloh on the bottom

right. And she is like this almost the

same personality as my wife. We could totally see her being

like a, like a lawyer. And when she grows up, she's a

fierce advocate. She'll like, very opinionated,

knows what she wants. And she will, she will tell you,

which is which is really cool. She's the the enforcer.

She'll be like, if, if mom and daddy lay down a rule, she'll be

like, no, mom and dad said no, it's really cool.

So yeah, just a little bit of and and I love my kids, right?

Our passage today comes into Deuteronomy 6, verses 5 through

Deuteronomy 6:5–9

9. So I'm going to read it for us.

Turn there if you'd like, says this.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,

and with all your strength. These words that I'm giving you

today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children,

talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk

along the road and when you lie down and when you get up, buying

them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your

forehead. Write them on the doorposts of

your house and on your city gates.

This is the word of the Lord. So a little bit might be a

little different. The last church service of the

year, the first one before the New year, Christmas just passed.

Why Deuteronomy 6? So before we get into

Deuteronomy 6, I want to break it down and see some context and

history. What is happening leading up to

this time in Deuteronomy 6? So to do that, we kind of have

to back up a little bit into Numbers 14, further into the Old

Testament. So Numbers 14 is where the

Israelites were initially freed from slavery in Egypt, right?

They were LED through the desert by the pillar of cloud and by

fire. They arrived at the promised

land finally in Canaan and but only to find out it was already

inhabited. Some people were already living

there. The people that were living

there were giants, right? And, and the, the, the spies

that the Israelites has sent out to kind of see what this

promised land was looking like. They saw these giants.

They brought the news back to the rest of the Israelites and

they're kind of consumed by fear, right?

They were thinking some of the things there might have been

thinking was for the giants, kill them.

They'd be taken as slaves again by these these giants.

Should they go back to Egypt, where at least they knew what it

was like and they'd survived for a certain amount of time?

Should they have just died in the wilderness so they didn't

have to confront this this potential danger?

They had a hard time trusting God, right?

And these are it's so interesting to think these are

like literal giants, right? I'm Chinese American and I used

to play basketball. I say used to have gotten older,

have kids now as much time she's use my time in other ways.

But when I was playing basketball right among other

Asian people, I'd be pretty tall.

So I kind of had to play power forward or center.

You kind of pushed into that position.

But then when I'm playing with other non Asian people, I'll be

a lot shorter than them. So I'd have to play like

shooting guard or small forward. And so depending on who I was

playing with at the playground, you have to kind of look around,

scan the room and see like, OK, who do I have to be today?

Do I have to like start posting up and get into the get into the

key? Or do I have to, you know, start

stretching a little bit more to do a little bit more movement

around the edges of the, of the court.

And, and I think like when I, yeah, I was always kind of not

the biggest person on the court. So whenever I see somebody

taller than me weighing a lot more than me, I'll get a little,

a little nervous, right? Like, OK, how am I going to box

this person out and things like that?

And I can only imagine the Israelites fear, right?

They're consumed by fear. And, and we know that that's not

necessarily a good thing because we see that that mistrust in God

actually brought them some punishment, some consequences,

consequences like I say to my kids, that fact that they did

not trust God, God brought them and said, hey, you will not

enter the promised land. You actually this generation is

going to pass away in the wilderness and you will not

enter the promised land. They were simply just blinded by

their circumstances, literally right in front of them.

Now, by the time we get to Deuteronomy 6, right, most of

this generation has died off. Moses, who's speaking in

Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 6, is talking to the children and

grandchildren of those who were initially freed from Egypt,

right? And he says, love Lord your God.

These are these words that I'm giving you today are to be in

your heart, right? Repeat these words to your

children. Talk about them when you sit in

your house behind them as a sign on your hand.

Let these words be a symbol on your forehead, and these words

that Moses gives them follows after this portion, and it fills

21 chapters of Deuteronomy, 21 chapters of Deuteronomy.

He says these things. Moses says these things.

These 21 chapters are to be in your heart.

These 21 chapters of content, of words, I want you to repeat them

to your children. These 21 chapters of content, I

want you to talk about them when you sit down in your house, when

you walk along the road. These 21 chapters, I want you to

bind them as a sign in your forehead.

I want you to write these 21 chapters of words on your

doorposts and in your city gates.

These 21 chapters, that's a lot. That's a lot.

It's quite a lot. There's a lot of laws, a lot of

instructions, a lot of details that Moses gives, right?

And at this time, Moses is getting older, right?

He's walked with the generation that passed away and, and he

knows he himself is not going to be going into the promised Land,

right? He did something that he

shouldn't have done. And so he couldn't enter the

promised land. But he's giving the Israelites

some final words, right? He knows he's going to pass on.

He's like, before I pass away and before you go into the

promised Land, I have something I want to tell you.

And he gives them 21 chapters of things right now.

Deuteronomy 65. Love the Lord your God with all

your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.

It's kind of like the subject line of his, of his message, the

title of his monologue, right? And he calls the Israelites to

do all these things. 21 chapters full of rules and instructions

and and reminders, right? I imagine Moses is like, hey,

when I'm gone and you're in the promised land, don't forget

these things. Don't forget these things.

Keep doing these things, right? Kind of like his last words.

Now it's been over 3000 years. Fast forward to today, right,

that Moses said these words, but I think that we need these exact

same things. We need these that exact same

challenge, that exact same challenge for us with Scripture

today. So let's kind of take it verse

by verse. In verse 5, Moses says love the

Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and

with all your strength, right? And so how can we start to love

God with everything? How can we start to love God

with everything if we don't really know him?

I like how this is the positive side of the command, right?

He doesn't say like, don't be driven by stress and and don't

pay attention to what others think of you.

And, and don't be having your decisions made by perfection or

driven by what other people are thinking or expecting of you

'cause that list could just go on for 21 chapters or more,

right? Like don't do this, don't do

that, don't. But I love others like, hey,

just love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with

all your strength, right? And be driven.

He's essentially saying I, I would argue he's saying

essentially be driven to love God with every part of your

lives, even when no one's looking, even when you don't get

the credit, even when you might be tempted in your hearts and no

one sees, even when there might be lust, pride or anything else

that no one really sees. But are you going to love?

I want you to love God with all your heart, with all your soul,

with all your strength. Don't be driven and moved by

anything else but God. Don't be moved or driven by

anything else other than God. How can, how can we know what

God wants if we don't read his word right?

Let's how can we love him if we don't know Him?

Verse 6, These words I'm giving you today are to be in your

heart. I think I missed a couple of

slides here. That's how I imagined the

Israelites felt with the giants. But he's saying don't be afraid.

You should fear God. Follow him.

All right? Yeah, let's.

All right. So this is the thing, if we're

to be honest with ourselves, right?

These words I'm giving you today are to be in your heart.

Let's ask ourselves what's really in our hearts.

I have young kids at home and so it's kind of easy sometimes to

see what's in their hearts. This is not my kid.

This just for their privacy. But like I, I see this face so

many times in in our house, right.

Picky eaters like things that, that they, they don't want to

give up or they don't want to stop doing.

They're like fun country and play all day long.

They, they will stay up like it's, it's been Christmas

weekend. So we kind of, you know, cut

them a little bit more slack, let them stay up a little bit

longer. We just got this like on

OfferUp. We found like a free slide.

And so we set it up in the living room and like, literally

for like, it was up until like 9:00 last night, like maybe even

10. They're just like going around

just taking turns, all three of them just going down this slide

over and over again. And then when it was time to go,

I had to like, literally like, wait until they like, looked

away to like, drink some water, like Chuck it away and like,

hide it so they couldn't see it because otherwise it would just

be a whole episode. But I could see what is in their

hearts right now. What's really in our hearts?

Is it really truly to be with God and follow his word, right?

Or is it more so maybe to to look for comfortability,

stability, financially or predictability in terms of

career, right? What's really in our heart?

Those things aren't necessarily bad, but is our true desire in

our hearts to really be with God, whether or not we get that

job, whether or not we have financial stability, whether or

not our housing is is stable, Is it still to truly be with God no

matter what what's in your heart?

Verse 7 Moses says repeat them to your children.

Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk

along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

So guilty of not doing this. I release so much to Martha.

Actually, it's like a modern day Martha situation going on here.

I get so lost in all the things, right?

Household chores, teaching the kids to talk to not just hum and

complain, but to use their words.

What do you want, right? To write, to count, do dishes,

laundry. It seems like it's never ending,

but this scripture here that Moses said 3000 years ago,

repeat these things to your children.

Repeat these 21 chapters to your children.

Repeat God's word to your children.

I need to do that more. How much do we really do these

things, do this in our day-to-day life, whether we have

kids or not? Is it do we do it with the

people around us? I work with University Christian

Fellowship, right? And it's a, it's a Christian

organization. And I get to talk with people

who are considering missions and we get to send people to, we

have over 120 different countries that we are able to

send people to, to serve students in all those different

countries. So there's a lot of opportunity

out there. And I get to talk with people,

help them discern through missions and potential

potentially serving overseas and living overseas.

And I think, and I think about it, right, like how much do I

repeat God's Word? So much of my work can just be

the, the projects and the deadlines and the, the

communications and the emails and things like that.

But how much are we getting back to God's word?

And if you work in a secular workplace, or you might not, it

might be kind of weird if you're like, Hey, the Bible says after

holidays on Monday morning, it could be a lot easier, right?

To, to be like, Hey, how was your weekend?

What did you do over the holiday and things like that.

And, and how much does like, you know, engage in that

conversation and, and talk about God's word without maybe

sometimes being so explicit about it, right?

Do we use, how often does Scripture come into our mind and

into our words with in our homes and in our workplaces?

Verse 8 says Moses says, bind them as a sign on your hand and

let them be a symbol on your forehead.

Now, just a quick little note is that back in the day, sometimes

slaves would be branded on their head or their hands to kind of

show who they belong to, right? And so this passage kind of

flips that right? And, and it says like, OK, who,

whose are we, right? Whose are we?

And, and Moses is this, this, this call for them to bind it as

a sign on their hand and a symbol on their forehead is

like, hey, no, I, I follow God, I follow God's word.

This is this is what it is also a reminder throughout the day

visibly. Yeah, I have a watch here.

And some of us might too. Just look at it frequently.

And and you know, if there was Scripture 2121 chapters of

instructions that Moses was saying, hey, bind to your hand,

put them on your forehead. Like how much more we have more

than 21 chapters. We have the whole Bible 66 books

right to to bind on our hand and to put on our forehead.

How often are we looking at Scripture in verse 9 says write

them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates.

Now, at times, at the time, and also even still today, some

people put like gargoyles or spells or things to kind of ward

off evil at the, the front of their house, right?

But Moses, he was motioning for people to put God's word there

instead, right? To say, hey, to make a public

declaration of like, hey, no, this is we're not doing any of

the, the lowercase G God expelling evil and things like

that. We're, we're putting God's word

here. We worship God, We trust that

God will take care of us and he will provide for us, right?

And, and we're living according to that.

The city gates were a place, a public place for any foreign

visitor to kind of see. And, and it's the first thing

that they see as they come in. And, and it's a declaration of

like, Hey, we worship God. We follow God's Word right?

Now, some of these things might be you have to kind of take it

all together, right? Because if you just take the

actions, the practical actions, right?

And you do these things, you have them in your heart, OK?

You're thinking about God's Word.

You're talking to people about God's Word.

You have it written down, you have it for show, you have it as

a public declaration, all that. But if you don't live it out,

it's all for nothing. If you don't live it out, it's

all for nothing. We're just playing the Christian

game. You put on the Christian outfit,

you do the Christian thing. But if you don't do it when no

one's watching, if you don't do it when you're really tempted,

if you don't do it when no one's looking, if you don't do it when

you don't get caught, does it really matter?

Do we really still follow God when it we don't get the credit

for it when no one's watching? Now, I want us to get practical.

We could just follow all of these things, right?

But some of us just need to start with God's Word.

We just need to start. I grew up going to church.

And so these things, you know, keeping God's word in our heart,

repeating it to our children, are the people around us talking

about it day and night, binding it on our hands and our

foreheads, making it visible around where we go, writing it

on doorposts, writing it down, and things like, I'm so used to

that, right? It's just second nature.

It's just what we should be doing.

It's what we do, right? But some of us, me included, I

think we just need to start and get back to God's Word.

Think about this. Moses instructed the Israelites

to do all of these things, not with a small little pamphlet or

a nice little flyer, small handful of verses.

He gave them 21 chapters and said, hey, keep this in your

heart, these 21 chapters. Repeat these 21 chapters to your

children. Talk about these 21 chapters day

and night. Put these 21 chapters on your

hands and on your foreheads. Put these right out, these 21

chapters and put it on your doorposts and write them out and

put them on your city gates, these 21 chapters.

I want you to do all of these things with these 21 chapters.

But how many of us, me included, have a small pamphlet or a flyer

that we have instead of 21 chapters?

Right. How many of us have that small

pamphlet instead of 21 chapters? And, and frankly, like the

Israelites at this time, they had 21 chapters.

Yeah, but we have no excuse. 3000 years later, we have 66

books. Do we have those 66 books in our

heart? Are we repeating those 66 books

to our children? Are we talking about those 66

books day and night? Are we writing those 66 books

out? I've never written them out.

I tried to type it out when I was young, trying to practice

typing and things. I only got through Genesis, like

10. It's a lot, a lot of writing.

Can't imagine yet how many of us have other things in our heart.

How many of us have competing allegiances and idols in our

heart? Things that we like and that

we're chasing? How many of us repeat other

things to our children in addition to scriptures?

Those things might be good, but are we intentional about

repeating the scripture? How many of us?

Of course, we talk about other things besides Scripture, but

how much Scripture do we talk about day and night?

If we're to like just do a command F or control F and look

for the transcript of like what we say in a day, how much

Scripture is in that transcript? And we look at our writing or

our typing, how much of that in proportion to everything else we

write or type is Scripture? I think some of us, many of us

me included, need to start with God's Word.

My encouragement, my challenge to us and to me today is this.

Let's read more. Read more of God's Word.

Let's read more of God's Word. Let's have God's Word in our

heart. Less of the other stuff.

Let's share it with our kids. People around us talk about it

day and night more more often than we do.

Let's write it down. Let's let Scripture, let's let

God's word be on our lips day and night.

But first let's let's read more of God's word.

I'm going to pray for us and then I'm going to just send you

all to kind of just reflect and and meditate with God.

Lord, I just want us to, I want this time to be a time of

confession or what are the ways that we have traded your word

for other things in our hearts, in our words, in the things that

we write and type in our lives. Even let's take this time to

just be with you and God and just confess and, and let's,

let's work on let's work towards repentance of, of reading God's

word more.