Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 3, 2024 | Deuteronomy - The Greatest Command

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March 3, 2024 | Deuteronomy - The Greatest Command · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:01
  unknown: Good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Good to see you.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Good to be with you.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Got a quick announcement this morning.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Wanted to update you on something that we covered actually last Sunday evening at our annual meeting.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know everybody was there, so this is just repeating for you that information.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: But annual meeting, we talked about uh membership at the annual meeting and some changes that as a church we're making to membership.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And some of you, first of all, are like, I didn't even know that we had membership at TBC.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's it's never been a huge part of the way that we've sort of brought our community together.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but there are some things, it is a part of our bylaws.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's the way uh that people vote for our leadership, for elders and for deacons, and also for our annual budget.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so about 10 months ago, um, the elder board got together and we began kind of asking this question about um if there was a way that we could basically just draw people uh closer to life in Christ through our membership process.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we sort of went through 10 months of meetings and were sort of going through that, we really came out with two goals.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and those two goals were that as a part of membership that we would uh better live out as elders, uh, the commands in 1 Peter chapter 5, which have to do with shepherding the church.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that was something that we felt like we could grow in as an elder board and what that sort of meant for caring directly for the people of the church.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but then also that as a church um that membership would be one of the many ways that we would sort of be able to encourage our discipleship process, which is discovering, connecting, and serving.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: We believe that if you discover, connect, and serve, it is going to draw you deeper into that life in Christ, and that is after all our mission is leading people to life in Christ.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so these two goals were really what led to the four changes in membership.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: They want to briefly share with you.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a uh web page, there's our website has all of this information in more detail.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Go to connect and then membership, and you can read about this.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's an FAQ.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you're on our e-news, you're getting this in an email.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Almost everything that I'm saying right now is also printed out at the guest services desk.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: So there are a lot of places where you can get this information.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: But anyhow, four changes.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Number one is the one I'm probably most excited about, which is just elder connection.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, starting this year, if you're a member of the church, the elder board is going to reach out to you twice per year for the purpose of accountability, for the purpose of encouragement, for the purpose of prayer, to really just kind of draw those bonds closer together with our church.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: We feel like this is what it means to be good shepherds of those the Lord has entrusted to us.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, part of that first Peter passage is that when Jesus returns, he's going to assess how well we did.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so we want to do a good job.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the ways that we think we can do that.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you'll be hearing more often from the elders if you're a member.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're also introducing a member covenant.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Member covenant is nothing to be afraid of.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: All it is is a piece of paper that is outlining what it means to discover, connect, and serve.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, sometimes people have asked the question, what do members of the church do?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is basically our way of answering that question.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Members of the church are those who have made the decision that they are going to discover, connect, and serve, and they're going to be examples to the rest of the flock that this is the way that we're going to live our lives.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's no like blood seal or anything on it.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is simply you sign your name and you say, look, this is a commitment that we want to make and it's important to us.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll talk more about that a little bit later.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: But just know that the member cut, every single one of the things on there, there's a Bible reference attached to it.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: We feel like this is one of the ways that we can, again, use this system of membership to lead people to life in Christ.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Number uh three is uh we're bringing about a new directory.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you still have our 2017 directory in our homes?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it feels like a specifically mulvane crowd kind of thing is to have the 2017 directory.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I have it in my office and I use it daily almost.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have that directory, you know that it is outdated, right?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have a need, um, instead of just continuing to publish like hard copy directories, uh, we're going to create an online directory that is consistently updated.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but one of the ways that in order to do that, to make it safe for people who have their information online, um, who want to have it online in that capacity, is that we needed to somehow sort of restrict who has access to that.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so the one of the changes here is that as we're going to be making a new uh directory here in the spring, is that that would be something that members have access to, right?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can always go up to the person and ask them what their phone number is or where they live, but if you want quick access, that'll be one of those things.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh finally, is that if uh somebody wants to be a member of our church, right?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you were not a member of our church by the annual meeting last Sunday and you want to become one, now you will go through a two-week membership class instead of the previous way.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Make a long story short, it's a little bit simpler for everybody involved and kind of streamlines the process.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, two brief questions.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: One, why does membership matter?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm gonna frustrate my uh Baptist friends here by saying that um, as an elder board, we don't believe that membership is a biblical mandate.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is that being a member of a church is not something that we feel like God commands anybody to do or that the New Testament church even really had membership as it's sort of construed today.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, we see it as a system, it's a process, it's a way for us to lead people to life in Christ.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And as with our bylaws, it's something that we have, so for the purpose of carrying out our church uh life, uh, we wanted to just see if there were things that we could add to it to make it more meaningful.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's also really important to say, there might be a question for some of you in the back of your head.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: There has never ever been a difference in the way that we have handled pastoral care uh for members and non-members of the church.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: You there's no difference in how you're treated.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's you you don't get a jacket, okay?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's no like VIP club lounge that you get to go and be a part of.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: We don't believe that that's a good thing.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so, really, what this is is for those who want to draw deeper into that fellowship, those who want to sort of set that pace in discovering, connecting, and serving, and those who want to engage more often with the elder board in that shepherding kind of care, this is the right step.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so then the last question is what do I need to do?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: There are three categories here.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the first is if you're a current member.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a current member of the church, you actually have something that you need to do.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is a process that you need to opt into.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's not just going to happen because for, yeah, to make another long story short, our membership role needs to be as accurate as possible.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: There are some people on it who have moved away and for various reasons.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: We just want people to say, yes, I want to be a part of this new process.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so what that means is if you're a current member of the church, you are going to sign and want to continue in that process, you are going to sign the member covenant.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can do that online through the uh, again, on our website, the connect page, and then membership, or you can go to the guest services desk where we have all this printed out and you can pick up a hard copy, okay?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you can return that to the church.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: The date is April 30th.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: April 30th, 2024 is when we need those back.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can do it before then, but that's when we need them back.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Number two is uh if you are not a member but want to become a member, uh, you can, through the same means, you can go to the guest services desk, you can uh look at your email.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you subscribe to our e News, you're getting one, um, or you can go to that our website and find it, and you can sign up for a new member class.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the first one is happening here in late April.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the last thing is if you're not a member and you don't want to become one, that's totally fine.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna call anybody and ask them why they don't want to be one.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's not gonna be some sort of sticker that you need to wear in the future, okay?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is we don't feel like this is a biblical mandate.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: We do feel like it's a good thing and a profitable thing, right?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: We feel like it is a positive thing for our church.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're like, that's not the right step for our family, that's not where we're at right now, that's totally okay.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just want you to everybody kind of needed to be updated on how this is going to be changing because it does affect some of the ways that we're gonna be carrying on our life as a church.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: So there's the update.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, if you have any questions, we have all of that information basically printed out for you.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: You're getting an email.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you subscribe to our e-news, you can go to the website.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Lastly, if you have any questions, after you've looked at all that information, found the FAQ on the on our webpage and stuff, if you have any questions, you can email elders at discover tbc.com.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Elders at discover tbc.com.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: So this morning, we are continuing um in our series in Deuteronomy, right?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And uh as we are moving on in our series in Deuteronomy, uh, we're actually coming to a passage that is, uh, I think without hyperbole, one of the most famous passages in the entire Bible.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and in fact, one that is most often, though, recognized as being a New Testament passage.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that's actually where we're going to start in the book of Mark.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's a scribe, a Pharisee, who is coming up to Jesus and is trying to stump him with a question.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And as soon as I bring this up, you might recognize it.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: The Pharisee asks, he says, Which command Jesus is the most important of all?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he answers, the most important is, listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: The second is, love your neighbor as yourself.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: There is no other command greater than these.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is not the only place that it happens in the Gospels where this same story is recounted, that somebody comes up to Jesus, challenges him, says, Okay, the law, pretty big deal.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: There are a whole lot of rules.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Which one of them is the most important, right?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Which is kind of a stumper question because normally you would think, well, I mean, okay, so do you say worship the Lord your God is more important than do not murder?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like, are we trying to draw, you know, comparisons here?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus instead answers, as he always does, with what they really needed to understand.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't answer their question directly.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, he quotes a passage from the Old Testament.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, both of these things that he has here, that you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, your soul, and your strength, and that you should love your neighbor as yourself.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Things that normally we associate with like New Testament kind of ministry.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, yeah, that sounds like Jesus right there.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: The one who says, you know what, set aside the stuffy rules, focus on the love, focus on your neighbor, have compassion for them.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's the summary of the law.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: These are the greatest commandments.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy in Leviticus, all right?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we see this passage and we look at it, one, it's a great reminder to us that Jesus did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: But second of all, it's also a great reminder of why we are drawing back into the Old Testament so often.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: It is not just a way for us to understand the New Testament, but when Jesus is asked, what is the greatest commandment?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: he's quoting things that are happening back then.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so we get to go and look at Deuteronomy this morning in this passage, specifically the first one here.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: The part that Jesus is quoting is from Deuteronomy is right there.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: The next part is from Leviticus 19.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna look at that this morning, and why does Jesus say that this is the greatest commandment, right?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's a pretty big deal.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna see that not only is it a big deal, but it actually serves as a great summary for really our entire life with God.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: So as we go to Deuteronomy, we're in chapter 6, verses 4 through 9 this morning.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And this is uh how it begins.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'll talk about what happened in chapter 5 in just a moment.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: But this is how Moses begins.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, Moses is talking to the collected nation of Israel as they're standing before him, getting ready to go into the promised land.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Repeat them to your children.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: 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.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Bind them as a sign on your hand, and let them be a symbol on your forehead.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's our passage this morning.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Moses, at this point in his leadership journey, basically has one job.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: His job is to teach the current generation of Israelites the law of God so that they may be faithful to it and enter into the promised land and live with blessing.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Moses has had many jobs in his leadership journey.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: He's been the leader of Israel for some forty years here, right?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: But after all of these things that have happened, his role that the Lord has for him now is not that he's going to continue into the promised land with them, but rather he is going to die here in a couple weeks.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And these are really his last sermons in the book of Deuteronomy that he is giving to them.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so what just happened in chapter 5 is Moses really carried out the main part of his job, which was repeating the law to Israel.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so he goes through the decalogue, the Ten Commandments, and you say, Well, okay, so was he not supposed to tell them all of the law?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, kind of like how our passage this morning serves as an umbrella for all of the other things that we should do in our life with God and the way that we live with him, the decalogue, the Ten Commandments sort of serves as like the shorthand for what it means to follow after God.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, really, all of the commands that you find after that.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if we go back to like Exodus, Leviticus, even Numbers a little bit, and the instructions that God is giving to his people, they can find their origin really in the Ten Commandments and the way that they're supposed to carry those things out.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is why the Ten Commandments end up becoming such an important part of Israel's relationship with God.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: So much so, in fact, that the actual stone tablets that they're written on, remember the second pair, because the first pair got destroyed when uh Moses saw the golden calf.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: But the second uh set of tablets that they're written on are actually placed inside the Ark of the Covenant, one of the three elements that are in there, along with the jar of manna and also Aaron's budded staff.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is always supposed to be a reminder for Israel that the law is in part defining their relationship with God.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: So Moses just did really the main part of his job.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: He told them, hey, like these are the things you need to do.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's chapter five.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: But now, as we really look at the rest of Deuteronomy, it's going to be Moses is going to kind of switch roles here and becomes more of like the pastor, exhorter, sort of like encourager of the nation, and he's going to apply these things.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's moving on really from the law.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: There'll be elements of it, but really he's like, this is how you should live out this law that I just gave to you.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to apply it to the current generation.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: So now we get to chapter six.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses has just finished this huge role, but now he sort of brings things back to a point.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And after just giving, you know, listen, love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, your soul, and your strength.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Make him the champion of your life.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why is he bringing these things up now?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's always been tension from the very beginning between God's law and obedience and seeking after him.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And there's always been a problem, furthermore, with the nation of Israel taking the law and actually doing it.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And part of the problem is that they have sort of seen it ever since they came out of Egypt, God redeemed his people and gave them these laws, that they have always sort of seen it as this like external sort of written code.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And instead, what Moses wants them to see it as is this internal spiritual law of love, really.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about you have a children, grandchildren in your home, you have nieces and nephews, whoever it is, a young child is with you, right?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they're staying with you.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: And right, part of them uh being in your home is that they would be obedient to your rules.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we don't draw on the walls with crayons and things like that.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: But especially as kids begin to get older, you want them to follow these things not because you have told them to, uh, or just because of that, but because they have sort of internalized these things.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, I know that writing on the walls is not a good thing, and so I'm going to, my direction is that I don't need to constantly be told and reminded, but rather that I will change my behavior, and out of love, out of respect, I'm going to do these things.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's the transition that Israel has always struggled to fulfill.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as we see here, we'll get to the main part of it here in a second, but looking at the middle of the passage, when Moses says, These words I am giving you today are to be in your heart, right?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: We see that Moses is desiring, and really God is desiring, that his law would not be just this thing that sits on stone tablets, but something that is internalized, right?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And out of love.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that internalization is something that here in Deuteronomy is going to be picked up later on in the Bible.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, you go to like Jeremiah, the prophet Jeremiah in chapter 31.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: He begins to talk about as a prophecy, right, about the law of God that is going to be written on our hearts and will no longer be written on sort of these tablets of stone, which is prefiguring and looking forward to Jesus Christ, who then brings us this law, but it is no longer one that is on stone tablets, but is imprinted on our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so if that whole sort of movement is kind of confusing to you, or you're not familiar with it, the thing you need to draw out of this is that God wants his people to want to follow him.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: He does not want to constantly have to tell them they need to follow him, but rather he wants them to want it.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so from that attitude is where Moses now speaks to the people, and he says, Listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: So let's now start at the beginning of this passage.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: There are a couple things that I want to pull out for you that are I think interesting.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: The first one here is really how it begins.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: It says, Listen, Israel.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so listen in Hebrew sounds like Shema.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so the first or the verses four and five here, which would be from listen, Israel, to strength, that even today, by Orthodox Jews, is a prayer that is called the Shema.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: And Orthodox Jews would pray this prayer twice a day.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so, listen, Israel, the Lord our God.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: What Moses is saying is, Shema, Israel, and so this call is like, yes, I know that you are listening to me.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: You are an active audience, but it's like, okay, but here, listen, hear me.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can almost picture a person sort of lovingly putting their hands on your shoulders and kind of looking you in the eyes and saying, like, hey, pay attention to what I'm saying here.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then his next, he has four words that follow that in Hebrew.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: We translate it as the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: But we're gonna get into the weeds just real quick, because this is very interesting, and I actually think the translation that's in the CSB, which is the version I normally use, um, could be changed a little bit.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the Hebrew.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Hebrew you read from right to left, and so like this is the first word, right?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that word right there, um, you'll notice is the same.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: This word is the same as this word, and that's the personal name of God.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is uh normally the the technical name is it's the tetragrammaton.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm messing it up.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Tetragrammaton, I think that is.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's four letters though, and it is what we would normally say is Yahweh.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's how we would pronounce it, though it didn't have uh vowels back then.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is God's personal name, okay.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: When you see in your Bibles the word Lord with tiny uppercase letters like that, that's translating God's personal name, Yahweh.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is the name how he refers to himself, and this is what he says.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: As his personal name is.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so, but the next two words, though, are Elohim, which means God, and this word at the very end, number four, is Ehad, which normally means one.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: So really it's Shema Israel, right?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yahweh Elohim, Yahweh Ahad.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: But that phrase that he's saying there, which is really this sort of like callback, we we're translating translating it as the Lord is our God, and then normally it says, the Lord is one, but a secondary translation of that word Ahad is the it brings the idea of like first or primacy or most important.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that fits much better than saying that God is one, which sometimes can bring up ideas of the Trinity or how we think about the persons of the truth and all of that kind of stuff.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: But when you let's just ask the question like, what was Israel dealing with right now?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Israel was not asking questions about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Israel is asking questions, and rather God is talking to them about how all of the nations around them have gods, that as they go into the promised land, that they are going to be tempted to worship those gods.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, that the two the first two laws of the Ten Commandments have to deal with worshiping the Lord your God alone and not making idols after other gods.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so you say, what fits this situation more than God is one is saying, Israel, our rallying cry is Yahweh is our God, and Yahweh is our God alone.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: He is the only one that we are going to worship.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that is gonna be the thing that defines us.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so from that, this is how the Shema begins, and we get the great commandment that Jesus quotes.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus quotes all of it, but the part that we can really dig into is love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna spend any time talking about what you know what is the heart here exactly, and what was the Hebrew conception of the soul, and what is strength more than physical strength.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: My goal is to look at this the way that Israel should take it, the way that we should take it, which is that the point in listening all of those things is that those who were hearing this command would understand that what they should have for God was a wholesale, committed, devotional relationship to God.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was something that should spread through every single part of their life, it should touch every part of their life, and every aspect of their being should be something in devotion to God Himself.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: God alone, right?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord their God.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so that is where the Shema really comes in.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: The big picture is we worship God alone, and that devotion represents then the greatest call upon our lives.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: But this law, though, it is not just something that we've already said that is placed on the tablets of stone, but it is something that is on our hearts.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so now we go back to our New Testament and we say, well, that sounds like the way that Jesus seems to speak about obedience in the New Testament.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Does that mean that we're supposed to discount all of the other stuff that the Bible tells us that we should do?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Is it fair to say that the greatest command, love the Lord your God, and then the second greatest command, love your neighbor as yourself, that those are the only things that we need to do?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, no, even Jesus says that all of the law can be summed up through these two things.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: So rather you should see the Shema, you should see Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 and 5 as kind of an umbrella, right?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's the spear point.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Think of it like uh there's somebody is interviewing an Olympic sprinter, okay?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: And they're getting ready to run the race, and so they got the mic in front of them.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, okay, listen, you're about to run this, this is for the gold medal.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me, what's your what's your strategy here?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, I'm gonna run fast, okay?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, You're gonna run fast, is that it?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Well, no.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've been training for years, and uh, you know, there's nutrition and there's workouts, and there's how I get down into the blocks, and there's my first, second, fifteenth step, and it's my gait, and it's my posture, and what I'm doing with my hands, and you know the clothes I'm wearing and the shoes I'm wearing, and all these things, but I mean, all of that is so I run fast.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what this is supposed to be here.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that everything else is sort of discounted, but rather everything else is brought into focus by asking the question, why do we do all of these things?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the response is to love the Lord your God.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: And to be able to, in very specific ways, this goes back to the other week when we said, like, why all the laws?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we say, well, isn't it far better to have a God who tells us exactly what we should be doing rather than one who makes us guess?
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so now we get the why, right?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why do we follow that?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer to that question here is so that we might love the Lord our God with all our of our heart, with all of our whole soul, and all of our strength.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we carry out the things that God has called us to do, in whatever capacity, we are fulfilling the greatest command.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: But uh one thing that often trips people up here is uh just that is that we are being commanded to love God.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: And some people look at this and they go, Well, uh, you can't command somebody to love you.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's not how love works.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: You don't just tell somebody, right, that they need to love somebody else.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: How could God do this?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this is true anytime that the command is given that we should love God.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what's missed in that conversation, what's often overlooked, is that uh one, that God has given us um every reason to love him.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: And number two, that there is no way that we could ever love God to the extent that he has loved us first.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so even when you say that this, yeah, this command is here, that's right, it is a command.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord your God in every aspect of who you are with your whole being.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: What we're also saying at the same time is asking the question of how could you command me to love you, is the same kind of question that Israel has been dashing themselves upon the rocks by asking for generations, right?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, these are the people, or rather, the people who are in front of Moses, their parents were the folks, who get redeemed out of Egypt and being slaves, and are just like, you know, a couple months into their journey, and are just like, we'd rather go back, we'd rather be slaves.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: God is going to kill us, and he wants to take our children and sell them to the enemies.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you're just like, what are we doing here, people?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is this really the outcome of understanding God's love story?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is that you go, yeah, but I don't really understand why I should love him.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so, up to this point in Deuteronomy, right, you have this love story that God has presented to the nation of Israel.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: But then certainly, as we go through the rest of the Bible, it continues to be a love story, one where the greatest event is culminating in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and then we anticipate the greatest love story in the future when we're reunited with Christ and with God.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: But all of these things come together and we say, God over and over and over again has given us not only reasons, like it's some sort of data point to love him, but has initiated and has been loving us for our entire lives.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so the idea that we would go and say, Well, how could God command us to love him?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is the reason why later on in the Old Testament, there's a little book called Hosea.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the prophet Hosea is commanded by God.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: He goes and marries a prostitute.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that prostitute, he he loves her and he redeems her and he rescues her out of uh that situation, right?
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: And they uh have a family and they uh they love each other, and then she goes back and she becomes a prostitute again.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we see the interactions that Hosea is having, the conversations that Hosea is having with God, and God says, go back to her and bring her back.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: And throughout the story, the the wife continues to go back to that previous life.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of Hosea, right, uh God says, This is what it is like for me to love Israel.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: That they continue to be a nation that I have shown love to and care and adoration and dedication, all those words, right?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: That I love them.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: And yet they are like an unfaithful people who go back into, and in fact, the word like prostitution, and even more intense words than that, to describe them going after other gods.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is what God says it is like.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I I remember too, like when I was a kid, I think a lot of kids do this, unfortunately.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm ashamed about it, but there were a couple times where I told my mom that I didn't love her, right?
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember some of those times, and there wasn't anybody, um, obviously that wasn't a good thing to do.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and furthermore, it wasn't the right thing to do, but there was also nobody who was there going, yeah, that makes sense, right?
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's my mother, the person who has shown me more love than anybody else, and yet here I'm responding to that love with rejection.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so you look at all these situations, and now you say, Well, God is commanding us to love him.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, yeah, that's a reasonable expectation.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: That is not some kind of like outlandish claim.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: He has not only given us every reason, but he has initiated and he has done more than we could ever imagine or returned to him.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, this wholehearted devotion, all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, this love and this dedication for God, Moses then uh begins to apply it to the nation of Israel, right?
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: And begins to tell them how they can live these things out.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh Moses, like the good pastor that he is, the shepherd that he is, he gives four different ways that the nation of Israel is supposed to live this out, right?
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: And as we go into this here, we're just gonna look at Moses' application, right?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then we'll try and see how that affects our lives today.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: But as we look at this, though, I want you to try and sort of bridge the gap with me between this idea that we've been talking about, that the law of God and the relationship that we have with him and the greatest command are things that are supposed to be written on the heart.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: They are not just codes or tasks or lists of things that need to be done.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: They are, they should be, right?
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: We are embodying this desire to love Jesus and walk with him, and that there are parts where we are told what that looks like and what it makes sense to do.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so now as we go to application, that we then want that we then would not look at this as rules and lists and to-dos, but rather as ways that we can embody that, that we can live out this greatest command.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: So the first thing that Moses says is that you are to repeat them to your children.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, I'm just quoting the CSB here.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Repeat them to your children.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: This ends up being, I mean, you could actually make a really good argument that of the four applications that Moses gives, this being the first one, that the subsequent three applications are all sort of nestled under this as ways to repeat the law to your children.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, the book of Deuteronomy in its context is based upon Moses' message to a generation that has experienced the failure of their parents and has before them a question of whether they will ultimately be failures in the way of obedience that we're talking about here in this sort of, I mean, even in the heart way that the parents' generation, they failed to have a heart for Jesus, they failed to have a heart for the Lord.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, will this generation have that same thing?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: Or, and this is the huge, like we this isn't answered in Deuteronomy here, or will they be a people who teach their children what it looks like to follow after God?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so as Moses says these things, right?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he's talking to them, the implicit command here is that it is not Moses' job.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is not later on Joshua's job or anybody else's, any of the leader's job, to teach the next generation what is going on.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: But rather, that is something that is carried out in the home.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so for those of you who are parents, right?
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Those of you maybe even have grandparents, aunts, or uncles, you have children in your life that you have great connection with, you have to understand that the primary application here, I mean, think about this, is not, I mean, it is, yes, love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, your soul, and your strength.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: But the first way that we apply this and show that we love the Lord is by passing that on to our children.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: We embody these things and then we are supposed to pass them on.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is not primarily my job, it is not Jason in the children's ministry or Jeremy and Lori in the student ministry.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: It is not our job to be the primary disciplers of your children or grandchildren.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: But rather, it is your job.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a hard job.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's difficult at times.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: We don't always have the right answers.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this isn't presuming that we have the right answers.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: What it is saying is that we are uh be able to teach our children the way that they should go because God has given it to us, right?
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: We're not making things up out of whole cloth.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: God said, listen, A, B, C, and we should be able to go and say, A, B, C.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: But beyond that, and hear me here, right?
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Beyond that, that the children of the current generation, that they would see their parents living these things out.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: That the way to make it legalism, the way to make it sort of that fundamental rules, just pure obedience sort of thing, is to be the hypocritical sort of generation that says the Lord is telling us to do these things.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: We know we should be doing these things because he said there are blessings attached to them, but we're not going to do them, but you should.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is how it becomes sort of this kind of like trite rules only.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Why is God telling us we need to do stuff?
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because the generation, oftentimes when people have that attitude, they did not have a generation before them embodying these things and showing them as being written on their hearts.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: They saw them as being passed down as just regulations that you're supposed to do.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: So repeat them to your children.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure that they know the way that they should go.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna take the next three a little bit faster, but Moses says, 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.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: This Moses isn't trying to make some exhaustive list.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: What's his point?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: His point is that the conversation about who God is, what he has done, his relationship with us, our relationship with him, all of these things, there would be something that happened more often than when the entire nation is gathered together hearing the law being read by Moses, right?
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: That as they dispersed and went into their tents and then later on their homes in the promised land, that these things would be a per would be a perpetual reminder of God's faithfulness because families are talking about them.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're having conversations about God.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: To think of it another way, there are 168 hours in your week.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you are spending only one to two of them talking about God, you are missing the point here, right?
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Our relationship with Lord, especially if we want to be a people who love him with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, right?
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: To say that there's just this like little, little section of our life that we dedicate to him.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it belongs to him during those couple hours.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: But the rest of our week in the way that we're living is sort of just in anticipation of coming back to that moment, is missing out on what it means to be God's covenant people, right?
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Who are redeemed and are able to have a relationship with Christ daily.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: So Moses, the main verb that he uses here is talk.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: How often do you talk about God?
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: How frequently is your faith or your prayer life or what you're studying in your Bible or inviting someone to church part of your conversation.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, Moses says, bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Orthodox Jews today take this very literally.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they would take the Shema, a little tiny scroll, put it in something, a little box called a phylactery, and they're going to put it on their forehead and bind it there, and they're going to wrap their arm.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they're taking this very literally.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll see Orthodox Jews who are deep in prayer, especially if you like go to Jerusalem, something at the Wailing Wall, you can find this.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: And they are taking this like kind of to the nth degree.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: Our focus is less literal and more practical, right?
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we're saying here is Moses is impressing upon the nation that they are to have reminders consistently in their life of who God is and what he has done.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you go back through the Old Testament and you, especially like Genesis, um, and then later on when we're in the promised land, but uh if you go back to Genesis and you read um all the different events that are happening to God's people, what you also see is that over and over and over again, he instructs them to create like monuments to these places.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: And they could be like a rock, it could be an altar, it could be a tree, it could be the name that they give to the location where it happened.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: But what God is doing is peppering sort of the promised land with these visual reminders of his faithfulness to the generation, so that as people live there and work there and walk by there, they will go, oh yeah, that is when this happened and God did this for his people.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so the impression here is that we should be able to do this as well.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I go to bed at night and I see my my phone cable snaking out next to my nightstand, I'm like, yeah, I need to plug in my phone.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so there are these, this is the excuse me, there's an idea here that we need to be reminding ourselves.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't, I'm not trying to like tell you exactly how that happens.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like for me, sometimes it's sticky notes, or sometimes placing something in a certain location.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like my Bible that I use for my quiet time in my office is at a very specific place, so that I always grab it and I kind of have my same routine each morning, but that I would be reminded of these things consistently.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth and finally, that you would write them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: Think back for one second to the tenth plague in Egypt and the Passover.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: Where were the Israelites supposed to place the blood of the lamb in their house?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: On the doorposts, right?
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so then when God comes through later on and is passing through that area and is exacting the tenth plague, right, he is able to see, and in fact, this is the way it's described, that the door post and doorpost and like the lintel, the blood of the lamb that is on it, is representative of everybody who is on the inside.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody on the inside is covered by the blood of the lamb that is symbolically, that is presented literally on their doorpost.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so the fourth and final application here that Moses gives is not really one for ourselves as much as for those who see us.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, the doorpost of your home and your city gates, really the seat of justice in the ancient world, too, like God's law is supposed to be written there as well, so that when the guests and the aliens, the immigrants who are coming in here, right, are able to see these things and are able to witness God's law, they would not be confused about who God's people are.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: This goes back to last week we talked about what it means to be the great nation, that they would see God's law written in all these places.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there are very literal ways to do this.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: Orthodox Jews have something called a mezzo that they put on their doorpost.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, many Christians go and buy wooden signs from Hobby Lobby that say believe, okay, and put them in their homes.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome if you want to do that.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: Again, my point here is not to be entirely literal, though you could do those things.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: But the question is, if somebody comes into our home, do they know that we have a faith in God?
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: One of the ways to accomplish that is by placing a cross on your wall.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: But also you might say, are we doing things, right?
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Are we doing the way that we act, the things that we say, the way that we have constructed, the way that we live our lives, even by just inviting people in.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: Are people able to tell who our God is?
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yahweh is our God.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yahweh alone is our God.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: That is who we worship.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: We love Him with all of our heart, with all of our Our mind with all of our strength.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then we carry out these things in our life.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: So the Shema is the greatest command, as Jesus says.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: It is also an umbrella term, law command, that describes really the emphasis, the why behind all the other stuff we do.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: The most important thing in our life is that we are a people who know God and love God and worship God.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: Secondarily, we live that out in our daily lives.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we look at this, right, and we see Deuteronomy, one, I just want to, you know, impress upon you, if we've ever had the idea Deuteronomy is not a book we should be reading, Jesus loves to quote from it, okay?
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: But also on top of that, how do we live these things out in our life?
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let's ask ourselves those questions.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about these things.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let's remind ourselves of these things.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let's share these things with other people, and then let's teach them to the next generation.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: That is the greatest act of faithfulness there.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord has given us many signs to be able to remember him by.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: One of those signs that we have today that he has given to us is the Lord's table.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: And as we move as a church into a time of the Lord's table, taking the body and the blood of Christ, I want you to keep in mind these things that we have just talked about.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to keep in mind how God has given us the ability, right?
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: Through this, his body and his blood, he has shown us that loving relationship that he has with us.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: He has shown us how he has initiated that relationship.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't do anything for it.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he has shown us how we can take part in that loving relationship by trusting in Christ as our Savior.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: And also now, through this, as an application of the Shema, we have a way for us as a church body to talk about, to remind ourselves, even as a sign to other people, of our dedication to Christ through taking in his body and his blood.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna go ahead and pray for us, and then after that prayer, we'll go ahead and take the Lord's table together.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: Will you bow your heads with me?
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you are good to us far better than we deserve.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: God, you have loved us from the beginning.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: You are a God of love.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you are love.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: And God, as we see these things, as we experience them, and Lord, you do command us to love you, but God, with good reason.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I pray that we would be a people.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just speaking for myself, Lord, you know this.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: I fall short in trusting you with my whole heart and soul and strength on a daily basis.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: And God, I ask that you would help me to be somebody who's fully committed to you.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, anybody else who says that they are struggling with this, Lord, that you would help them by the power of your spirit to be fully committed to you.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you are our God, you alone, and you deserve all of our allegiance, all of our dedication.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you deserve our hearts, for you made them anyway.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: And God, I pray that as we reflect now on your Son, Jesus Christ, on you dying on a cross for the sins of the world, Lord, that we might draw close to you, that we would see how you have given this supper to us as a reminder of your faithfulness, of your dedication, of your commands that you have provided, so that we can continue to love you.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says in 1 Corinthians, he says, For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, This is my body which is broken for you.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: Do this in remembrance of me.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: In the same way also he took the cup after supper and said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_00: Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me, for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we proclaim your broken body, and we proclaim the saving power of your blood until it is that we get to see you again.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: And God, I pray that this will be something that we talk about, that we remind ourselves of, that we tell other people about.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: God, something that we pass on to our children.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, might we be a generation that is faithful, that is dedicated, that is not giving a half hearted allegiance to you, but instead saying that we love you, Lord, with all of our heart, with all of our souls, and with all of our strength.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we do all these things in Jesus' name.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being with us today.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh love you.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.