FHBC Sermon Notes

Deuteronomy 6:4-12 - Sean McMahon

You would think that after all the wonders that God had done for his people. For all the salvation that they had personally experienced that they would have no problem trusting and follow God.  But alas… How many times they forget.

280 miles.  That is the distance from Goshen to the banks of the Jordan.  Even walking this should take only about 2 months to traverse.  But instead they wandered in the desert for 40 years. It is one of the world longest shortcuts.  What was amiss?

So often we come to a prayer meeting, expound all our issues, and then end with a 30 second prayer.  How often to we enter our prayer closet and pray all our needs and then fail to listen.  God desires communion with us.  He begins this passage with "Hear, O Israel!" This is the first thing.  How often have we shut God out. We are not listening.

God continues with a clear statement of who he is.  "The Lord our God, the Lord is one!". There is no other.  This is so critical that God had them write this on their doorpost, in their houses, taught to their children.

This revelation is followed by the people's response.  He callers us to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your would and with all your might." In the Hebrew there is no difference between command and obedience. To hear is to do.  If we do not do it, we have not heard it.  This is something we do not just with ourselves, but our friends, our families, our children.  How critical to we put the teachings that we have learned in God with our children.  The word of God is preeminent.  We must teach them to love, and to know, and to worship God.

But here is the challenge?  Do we love God so much that it comes out in everything we say and do.  Do others around us know what we are?  Are we as the prophets, does the life within us burn so brightly that we cannot not keep it in.

Here church,  "The Lord our God, the Lord is one!".

Amen.