Well, we are in Deuteronomy chapter six again this morning, if you'll take your Bibles and turn back there with me. This is, as Pat noted, one of the great passages of the Old Testament, and we are looking at the call to obedience as Moses prepares the next generation, the new generation of Israelites to enter the land of Canaan. He's calling them back to the basics of obedience says to them in a sense you are in a unique and privileged relationship to the one true God. He has sovereignly chosen you as his people. He has powerfully delivered you and redeemed you from slavery in Egypt. He has faithfully provided for you and protected you and he has graciously given you this good law and now as the people of God you are to walk in obedience to Him. And that is really the call upon our lives as well as Christians. The Christian life is a call to obedience. We don't obey as the condition for salvation. We obey as the result of salvation. And we don't obey in our own strength, but by the strength which God Himself supplies as we walk by His Spirit. But as believers, we obey. That is our life. And as obvious as that may seem to many of us, a lot of people are confused about the idea of obedience. And so I want to just, as we introduce this, address some of the common misconceptions. Maybe you've heard of some of these, maybe you've had some of these attitudes, but I trust that maybe we can correct some of these misconceptions. The first one is that obedience is impossible. that God only established the requirement of obedience in the Old Testament to demonstrate that no one is able to do it. No one is able to obey God fully, and that's why he sent Jesus. That's why we need the Lord Jesus as our Savior. Well, how would I respond to that? Two ways. One, the requirement of obedience is not unique to the Old Testament. Certainly, believers in the New Testament are redeemed by the blood of Jesus and released from the bondage of the law, but were likewise commanded to obey God. And so in either testament, you have this emphasis before the cross, after the cross, God calls his people to obey him. Secondly, even in the Old Testament, where obedience to the law of Moses is required, there is the expectation of faithfulness. Obedience was never taught as something impossible, but as something quite possible, and in fact, perfectly reasonable to demand. Listen to Deuteronomy 30, verse 11. For this commandment, which I command you today, is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. It is not in heaven that you should say, Who will go up to heaven for us to get it and make us hear it, that we may observe it? Nor is it beyond the sea that you should say, Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it? that we may observe it, but the word is very near you in your mouth, in your heart, that you may observe it. So obedience is not impossible. Another misconception is the idea that obedience is a sort of a second level, higher level commitment. Some believers grow to that, but many do not. Many believers never grow to that. lifestyle of obedience, but they're still saved because of faith. Faith doesn't necessarily guarantee that a person will be obedient, but as long as they believe, they will be saved. Well, the problem with that, at least one of the problems with that, is Hebrews 5, 9 says, Jesus became to all those who obey him. the source of eternal salvation. Now, we expect to read Jesus became to all those who believe in him the source of eternal salvation, but it says those who obey him. Salvation from Jesus belongs to those who obey Jesus. And there really is no other category of Christian. There aren't different levels of believers, some who obey and some who don't, some who are filled with the Spirit and some who aren't, or some who become disciples, and some who just never do, some who bear fruit, and some who don't. There's really one category of believers headed for eternal salvation, and that is those who obey Jesus. James 2 emphasizes the same point when it says, What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? And the implied answer is no. That faith cannot save him. Even demons have that kind of faith. They believe and tremble. So if a person claims to be a believer, but his life shows no evidence of being a believer, then his professed faith is no faith at all. An obedient life is the fruit of saving faith in every case. Third misconception, obedience isn't necessary because we're not under law, but under grace and grace means we can do what we want. We're free to do whatever and we're not going to be ever condemned no matter what we do. So we're not obligated to keep commandments. We're obligated to swim and splash in the marvelous grace that has been poured out upon us in Christ Jesus. Well, it is true that we're not under law, but under grace. What does Paul say about that in Romans chapter 6? Now that we have received grace through our Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 6-1 asks, what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? In other words, if it is true that we're sin increased, grace abounded all the more, should we sin on freely that grace may increase? And Paul's answer is, no, nine, nix, nip on, yet. May it never be, how shall we who died to sin still live in it? In fact, in Romans 6, 12, he goes on to say, therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lust and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness. To God, and in Romans 6, 14, he says, for sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. So not under law, but under grace does not mean the freedom to sin, Paul argues. To the contrary, obedience is necessary precisely because we are not under law, but under grace. Another misconception that I've heard is that obedience is just not that important to God. God knows that we cannot obey him perfectly, and that is not what matters to him anyway. What matters to him is that we know him and that we love him and that we know how much he loves us. Well, certainly it does matter to God that we know him and love him and know how much he loves us and we enjoy the security of that. But what did Jesus say to his disciples in the upper room in John chapter 14 verse 15? If you love me, you will keep my commandments. In John 14 21, he said, he who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me and he who loves me shall be loved by my father and I will love him and will disclose myself to him. In verse 23, He said, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. Very strong words. There is no love where there is no obedience. We can't say we love Christ and yet not obey Him. To obey Him is how we show that we love Him. Love is what matters, then obedience matters, and it matters to the Father. So, obedience is the way to manifest your love. Another misconception is that obedience is just the wrong focus. It's just wrong, it's a bad thing to emphasize, because if you emphasize obedience too much, then you make people legalistic. And that was the problem with the Jews and the Pharisees in the first place. They were all so obsessed with obedience that they had no love for people and they didn't even recognize the Messiah when he came. They were so off track. Well, that's actually the complete opposite of the true nature of the case. The problem with the Jews and the Pharisees in particular is not that they were too obsessed with obedience. They were too obsessed with disobedience. They weren't being faithful to the Word of God. They were being unfaithful to it, and that's what made them unloving. That's what made them legalistic. That's what made them idolaters and liars and murderers and unjust judges who would condemn and crucify their own Messiah. Jesus accurately diagnosed their condition in Matthew 15 when he said, You transgress the commandment of God, you invalidate the Word of God for the sake of your traditions. He said, you hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. So it's a wrong characterization. It wasn't that they were obsessed with obedience. It was that they were obsessed with giving the appearance of obedience while maintaining and perfecting their hypocrisy and their disobedience. So don't confuse that. Don't confuse obedience with legalism. Be careful of that. Obedience is when you are doing what God commands in his word. Legalism is when you are doing things that go beyond what God commands in his word and you are demanding that others do the same. And an emphasis on obedience doesn't promote legalism, it prevents legalism. But those are some of the misconceptions about obedience. The bottom line is this. First John 2 3. By this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. I mean, that's pretty clear, isn't it? The one who says I have come to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word in him, the love of God has truly been perfected by this. We know that we are in him. So obedience is possible. It is fundamental. It's not a higher level. It's a basic, universal level of commitment for all believers. It's necessary. It's important. And it is the right focus. Let no one deceive you with empty words, says Ephesians 5, 6. The wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Those who characteristically live in disobedience to God will face his wrath. They are not saved. They're not true believers. True believers obey him. So as we look at Deuteronomy 6, we're looking really at just one of many passages throughout the Bible that call us to obedience. And even though in this context, it's Moses calling the children of Israel to obey the law, The parallels to us are obvious. As Christians, Christ calls us to walk in obedience to Him and keep His commandments. And as true believers, certainly we want to be faithful to do that. So these principles in Deuteronomy 6 apply to us as well. Now, last time we looked at the why of obedience. As motivation, Moses gives in verses 1, 2, and 3 some reasons why you must obey. It's reasonable and right that you should obey the Lord your God and keep His commandments. And we said there are three reasons. Because, number one, obedience is the purpose of teaching. Verse one, this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you that you might do it. Or do them. in the land where you are going over to possess it. This is the purpose of all teaching. This is why God has been so faithful to put teachers into your life, not simply so that you can know more, but so that you can obey better. That's the issue, that you might do it. Secondly, it is reasonable and right that you should obey God because obedience is the parallel to fearing God. Verse two says so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and commandments and so on. Fearing and obeying run parallel to each other. Obedience is how you manifest your fear, your reverence, your adoration for God. Worship then, without obedience, is unacceptable worship. Behold, what does God say? To obey is better than sacrifice. Don't worship me. Obey me. And if you aren't going to obey me, then all of these sacrifices that you bring as acts of worship are unacceptable. And so we said the ultimate act of worship really is an obedient life. Third, then, it is reasonable and right to obey because obedience is the path to blessing. Verse 2 at the end says that your days may be prolonged. Verse 3, that it may be well with you, that you may multiply greatly, and so on. Just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, promised you in the land flowing with milk and honey, all of that is to say that obedience brings blessing. And that's God's desire. Obey because it's for your own good. And we could all testify to that as believers today, what believer among us has ever regretted obeying God. Now, that brings us to the second aspect of this call to obedience, not only the why, but the whom. Whom? you should obey. I want to look at this in verse four. This is what it says here. Oh, Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one that is known as the Shema. Right. Why? Because that's the first word in the Hebrew Shema means here. Shema Yisrael, hear O Israel. Adonai, and they put Adonai because they won't say Yahweh, it's really Yahweh in the text, but every time the Jews came to Yahweh, they inserted or read out loud Adonai. Instead, they were so determined not to say God's name in vain, they didn't say it at all. So they read Adonai Eloheinu, that is the Lord is our God, Adonai Echad, the Lord is one. So this is the Shema, this is the Jewish confession of faith still recited twice daily by devout Jews. It's just a clear and concise statement of their monotheism, which unfortunately they didn't always practice. But this is a great confession and it emphasizes two very important truths. The theological truth, theology proper, is that there is only one God. That's what the last part means. He, the Lord, is one. Or He is the exclusive one, the only one. He alone is God, is the idea. And then the soteriological or relational truth here is that He is our God. He's your God. So the point here is, listen, the object of your obedience is this God. It's not a creed or a church, it's not a man or a movement, but it is the Lord who is alone God and who is your God. So it's just impressing us with the relational aspect here. Obedience is personal. Personal. And he's emphasizing these two things. The Lord is One. In other words, Yahweh alone is the one true God. And Israel was to observe no other gods because there is no other. There are no other gods. And of course, this in the context of the Canaanite land where people were pantheistic and worshiped many gods, just as people today worship many gods. Mormons worship a different god than the God of the Bible. Muslims worship a different god than the God of the Bible. But the reality is, and the truth that this is teaching doctrinally, those gods do not exist. There's one God, and he is Yahweh the Lord, and all other so-called gods are merely the product of either human imagination or demonic influence. And that is to say, listen, the fact that the Lord is one does not mean that all who worship a God of any kind ultimately are worshiping this one. That's not what it means. Human beings across time and around the globe do not all worship the same God differently, nor do they each worship a different God similarly. You either worship this one Lord who is alone God, or you worship a myth, or a demon, or a man, or yourself, or whatever. Then he's emphasizing the relational aspect. This one and only God who is eternally and universally all-powerful and supreme and sovereign is your God. He's your God. He's not afraid or ashamed to identify Himself as your God. And you may identify yourself as His people. That's the relationship that Moses emphasizes throughout this chapter. Verse 1, the Lord your God. Verse 2, that you might fear the Lord your God. Verse 5, you shall love the Lord your God. Verse 10, the Lord your God. Verse 13, again, verse 15, verse 16, your God. So he's saying here, O Israel, the Lord is not just God, he's your God. You get the weight of that. There's one God and he's yours. That's the effect. And the implications of that are tremendous because he's your God, you can trust him, you can pray to him, you can depend on him, you need not fear, you have a savior, you can walk with him and walk in his ways. All of those things are true because there's one God and he's ours. So Moses here is just trying to compel us to see the privileged position that we are in. Is obedience unreasonable when you are such a privileged people? If being the chosen people of God is the highest privilege imaginable, shouldn't obeying the one and only God be the highest privilege imaginable? Is he so hard to obey? Are his commands burdensome? No. There are delight. And so that's why the Shema here is such an important component in this call to obedience is not just the law or the commandments that you're obeying. It's not just the Bible that you're obeying. It is the Lord, your God, whom you are obeying, a person. And so obedience for us, it's not a duty to perform. It's not a hardship we have to endure. It's not an obligation to meet. But it is the natural and joyful response to a person. And obedience is how we cultivate and maintain and manifest our relationship with Him as a person. So obedience is personal and it is relational. The Christian life is a call to obedience because the Christian life is a call into a relationship with the one and only true God through Jesus Christ. And obedience is how we display that relationship. It's how we live it out. I think of Abraham, who was called the friend of God and what marked his life, the obedience of His faith, I think of David, who was called the man after God's own heart and what marked his life. Acts 13, 22, David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart who will do all my will. So deep relationship with God equals an obedient life before God. That's how that works. So we're called to obedience and we need to remember that we're not simply obeying precepts or principles, but a person. Then notice thirdly, the what here, what you should obey. You say, OK, uncle, I believe you were to obey. But what is it exactly that I'm to obey? What would you have me to do? Verse five really nails it down. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. Now you've hit the bullseye of the whole deal. This is it. You want to know what it means to be called to obedience? It means to be called into a love relationship with God. Do you love God? That's the issue. Do you love Him? Do you love Him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might? And the point of using all those terms is not to divide man up into all these different constituent parts. The point is to emphasize that we are to love Him with all, with all of our being. That's obedience. I love Him with all that I am. And there's an emphasis here again on A couple of different things. First, that we're to keep this as sort of the greatest commandment, right? What's the greatest commandment? Love the Lord your God, and then to the fullest capacity with all, with all, with all. And it's surprising, you know, I was studying through Deuteronomy. We think of Deuteronomy as a, as a book of law. I would challenge you to read through it and observe how many times you see the word or even the command to love. Love God, love him, love him, love him over and over dozens of times in Deuteronomy. Yes, it may be the second law, but it's really about first love. Do you love God? Do you love him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your might? So that's what it means to obey. To obey is to love. That's what God wants. And that's really the essence of the whole law anyway. It could all be reduced to that. Love God. And if not that, then love God and love your neighbor. But loving your neighbor is really how you show that you love God. So it all could be simplified into that one great command. Do you do that? Do you see how all the other commands of Scripture really are but a practical manifestation or application of that one. We're to love Him. God wants us to love Him. So sometimes it's just good to come back to this sort of basic question. What does the Lord command of me? What is my Christian life all about? What is it that I'm to be doing really, fundamentally and basically? When we ask those kinds of questions, we come back to this simple verse and we say, oh, it's about loving. It's about loving him. Deuteronomy 1012 expresses it well. And now what does the Lord your God require from you but to fear the Lord your God and to walk in all his ways and love him and serve the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul. So love God, love God with with all, with all that you are, with all that you have. Now, maybe you would say, you know, I do. I do love the Lord when I stop and think about it. Problem is I don't often enough stop and think about it. So what can I do about that? What? You know, I get caught up in the busyness of life and I catch myself sometimes going, oh, wait, God. Oh, yeah, God. What can I do to keep my mind focused on this sort of lifestyle of continuous loving obedience to God? How can I sort of make that the the center of my life, the focal point of my life, the engine that drives everything else that I do. Well, I think that's the next part of the text. How do you make loving obedience the conscious pursuit of your everyday life? That's the how. That's what comes in verses six through nine. And there are four practices here to help you cultivate a lifestyle of loving God, of obeying God. And really, it isn't even four things, but one thing, which is to maintain an appropriate attitude toward the scripture, how you view and what you do with the Bible is the issue. So let's look at these. This is how you cultivate this lifestyle of loving obedience to God. Number one, verse six, by thinking on the word, deeply. And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. That's the first thing you have to read and meditate on the word of God. It has to be on your heart. What does that mean on your mind? See, these words shall be on your heart. in your thoughts, in other words. So the scripture has to saturate your mind and occupy your thoughts. How's it going to do that if it stays on the countertop like this six days a week? Maybe it's because you're listening to a lot of tapes or CDs. I don't know. But you've got to get it from here into here. You understand? And there's no magical way to do that apart from opening it and reading it. and maybe memorizing it and studying it, but just being deliberate about getting it into your thoughts and chewing on it and and thinking about it all the time. Not just reading the Bible, you know, occasionally looking it up something like you use it like it's a dictionary or use it like it's a phone book. Hey, what's that? What's so-and-so's number? Oh, hang on, I'll get it. Or what is that verse that talks about Jesus and the woman at the well? Where is that? Oh, yeah. John four. Sometimes we use the Bible like it's a reference book instead of reading it to know God and to have the mind of Christ and to be acquainted with his ways and to have his thoughts permeating and saturating our own thoughts. That's the point. So we need to be thinking on the word deeply. How do we do that? We have to be reading it and memorizing it and meditating on it. Let it dwell richly within you, we learned in Colossians 3, 16. Psalm 1 says, the godly man, his delight is in the law of the Lord, and he meditates in it day and night. That's the formula, really, to cultivating this love, this obedience. Read the Bible to know God and think about the things that You're reading there. Secondly, not only to to think on it deeply, but maybe we could say. By teaching the word diligently, verse seven, and you shall teach them diligently to your sons, teaching them. Helps reinforce doesn't in our own hearts, I mean, if you really want to learn something, teach it. But the word here is a very powerful word to teach them diligently It's a word that has to do with inscribing, like an engraver maybe of a monument takes a hammer and a chisel and with painstaking care etches a text into the face of a solid slab of granite. It's that kind of intense, deliberate effort that's required here, teaching them diligently to our sons, to our children. And I would challenge you, fathers, have you cultivated a systematic approach to doing that? Are you teaching the word of God to your family? That's the best way to learn it yourself. So by doing that, you engrave it not only on their hearts and minds, but even more indelibly onto your own. So that is a necessary part of the process. You want to love God? You want to live in a conscious attitude of love and obedience toward God? Then you need to get in the word. You need to make that a regular part of what you're thinking about and what you're teaching to your children. Third, you need to be talking about the word daily. Talking about it. You shall, verse seven, you shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. That's comprehensive, right? When you're at home and when you aren't at home, that's everywhere. When you're active, when you're inactive, that's all the time. So the point is, anytime, anywhere is a good opportunity to talk about the truth of Scripture. You want to be systematic about it, but you also want to be spontaneous about it. Just use the everyday issues of life, questions, problems, trials, joys, circumstances, to lead your thoughts and conversations back to the Word of God. And then the last thing, kind of just to fill this out, by treasuring the word dearly. Verse 8, this is kind of the funny little part. It talks about binding them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead and you shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. You know the Jews took this literally, right? They on special occasions bound these tiny leather boxes called phylacteries either to their hands or forearms or to their forehead. or they would place these metal, really now metal receptacles called the mezuzah at the right of their front doorway and each of them would contain verses from the Torah reminding them of their covenant relationship with Yahweh and even publicly identifying them as members of the covenant community. So they applied this very literally and certainly there's nothing wrong with doing that. Having visible reminders are important. They're vital to our faith. We have a Similar kind of thing with the communion table, a visible reminder to us of what the Lord has done for us on the cross. So those kinds of visible things are not bad. But I think the point here, the language is metaphorical, right? It isn't saying literally bind them, you know, tie them around your head. It's like Proverbs 620 says, my son, observe the commandment of your father, do not forsake the teaching of your mother, bind them continually on your heart, tie them around your neck. When they walk, when you walk about, they will guide you. When you sleep, they will watch over you. When you awake, they will talk to you. It's that kind of idea. The point is, embrace the truth, make it your own, personalize it, cling to it, right? Treasure it. Prize the Word of God. Don't be ashamed to have it visibly impact your daily life. Let every decision, every thought, every word, every deed be guided by the Lord's commandments. Let it be something that's so prominent in your life that you sense it constantly with you, guiding you, talking to you. That's the idea here. So it's just cherishing the word of God and letting it be central in every aspect of our life. So what do we need to be doing? All of us? Well, we need to be loving and treasuring and hiding the word of God in our hearts and letting it dwell in us richly. We need to be reading it. We need to be memorizing it. We need to be teaching it, sharing it, talking about it, thinking about it. all the time. That is how we obey. That is how we live in this constant state of conscious awareness of God's presence and loving him and living in fear and reverence for him and all of him and obedience to him. It all comes down to what we do with his word. What are you doing with it? What are you doing with it? You have a A habit? Do you have any kind of consistent time in the Word? Do you memorize Scripture? I mean, is this it for you as far as the Bible goes, what you get here on Sundays? I mean, that's a start, but I hope that you understand if you're really going to hide the Word of God in your heart, you need to be in it more frequently than once a week. And I really believe, you know, with all my heart, that our relationship with God is directly proportional to our relationship with the Word of God. And I know in my own life, when my relationship with the Word of God is bad, my relationship with God is bad. So there's a direct correspondence there. We need to be people of the book if we're going to be people who obey. So, but that's what the Christian life is. It's not confusing, is it? We make it confusing, but the Bible makes it very, very clear. The Christian life is a life of obedience, and this passage certainly emphasizes that and shows us why and whom and what and how to live that out on a daily basis. In my prayer, really my passion as your pastor is that we would be faithful, not only to study the Word of God together, but to study it so we can know what it says so we can do it. So we can do it. And so I just am concerned that we, as we transition from our study of one book into the study of another book, keep that focus. We're not just here to learn something new. Give me something else. But as we go through systematically, looking at everything we're learning and going, hmm, what part of that am I not obeying? What part of that do I need to implement into my life? Lord, help me to do that. That's why we're here. That's why we opened the Word of God together week in and week out. And you know, another maybe way to think about all that, I know that's been true. Obedience has been a part of many of you for years and years. There's kind of an older generation in this church, and you've walked with the Lord for years and years, and you've been obedient, and it's almost like, OK, now there's this new generation, and it's a transition of, OK, is this new generation going to rise up and walk in obedience to Christ and walk in obedience to God? And so there's a challenge for each of us to do that, and I hope that you'll hear this call to obedience as a personal challenge to you. to do that, to be faithful to do that. Well, bow with me as we pray. Father, thank you for your word. I mean, it's, as Pat said, it is so full of purpose and hope and it's so full of conviction, too. I mean, we We're challenged by this, so we just pray that your spirit would help us to apply the things that we've learned. Maybe just one thing we've heard today would be a good start to something that you want us individually to work on. But I pray that this call to obedience would be heard and that we would be diligent to Be doers of the word not not hearers only Lord. We don't want to play church We don't want to just go through the motions and pat each other on the head and say, you know good Christian you came today We want to live this out in our in our lives in our homes in our in our jobs and and how we manage our money and how what we do in our free time and and how compassionate we are toward those around us in need and and how eager we are to share the gospel with those we know are lost. We want to do the things, Lord, we know you've called us to do and put us here to do. We don't want to just keep studying your word and just compounding either the guilt or the neglect. So give us grace to do the things we know we should do. Thank you for your patience with us, for your faithfulness to keep teaching us, to keep wooing us toward obedience and just for the forgiveness. Lord, you know we aren't going to obey perfectly, but you call us to that and we want to be faithful. Thank you for your grace in that process. For anyone here, Lord, who is as yet maybe not a believer yet, they're not obeying you at the fundamental level of obeying the gospel. They have heard the gospel, but they aren't obeying it. They haven't repented and trusted Christ personally as their Savior. I pray that you would cause them to respond to this call to obedience by embracing Christ. and taking up his cross and following him and getting serious about being a believer and being a follower of Jesus. Do that work, Lord. Do your work in each of us. We trust you to do that and we thank you that you're faithful to do it. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.