Princeton Presbyterian Church Sermon # 1602
August 27, 2023
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 Click here for audio worship.
Dr. Ed Pettus (presented by RE Wilber Jones)
"A Heart for Covenant"
4“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
They say that the heart of the artichoke is the best part, the heart of the celery stalk is the most tender, the heart the watermelon is the sweetest. It is the heart of the matter that is most important, the essential part. In speaking of the human person, the heart is the central core of emotion and being, it is the place where our personality will be expressed, as Jesus said, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).
The Proverbs are full of instruction about the heart of a person:
“A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed” (15:13).
“The wise of heart is called discerning, and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness” (16:21).
“A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones” (17:22).
It is at the heart that we find the true nature of a person. It is the center, the essence of the person so the Proverb warns, "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)
As the people of Israel stood before the land they were to inherit, Moses told them of the law and the commandments God had given. At the center is this word,
4“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart” (Deut 6:4-6).
Love the Lord your God. Love with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength. Love is at the heart of our covenant with God. Love God, love your neighbor, and we know that we love by keeping commandment and by abiding in Christ (John 15.1-11). Real love is about commitment, not devoid of emotion and feelings, but emotions will not sustain any relationship forever, not between husband and wife, parent and child, between friends, or God and disciple. Genuine healthy relationships are built upon deep commitment and loyalty, that is, the kind of love that comes from the depth of heart and strength and soul. It comes from the love God gives that leads to life and energy and will. Loving God means committing one’s self to God through keeping commandment. It is at the heart of the covenant that we love God and we show that love through keeping commandment, loving neighbor, and seeking to engraft these actions into our hearts to give us a heart for covenant.
...these words that I command you today shall be on your heart”
This is the heart of the covenant, the foundation of our responsibility to God. The first emphasis upon God as One in verse 4 indicates that our loyalty cannot be to any other gods, "You shall have no other gods before me." Jesus describes this command as the greatest, 34But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:34-40.
Jesus connects two commands, one from Deuteronomy and another from Leviticus. Not new commands, but quotes from long ago that demonstrate a significant, life keeping message – to love God is to love the neighbor; truly to love the neighbor is to love God. Love for God is total commitment to God and God's way of life, and if you were here last Sunday you have heard, it’s the way of God’s kingdom.
There are, in Deuteronomy 6, two inclinations of the heart – to love God and to love God’s Word… “love the Lord your God...these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.” To be in covenant is to be in communion with God through our love for Him and through His Word to us.
This is the heart of life, the sweet center where we rest in God in love. We hear a great deal about the love of God for us and in that love God is devoted to his people, committed to the covenant, a shared relationship. We are the covenant partners and the heart of that covenant meets in love and obedience. This is not something that can be measured through a medical heart examination, we cannot get the commitment to God in statistics in order to compare with others in our age bracket, we can only stand before God as a partner and examine the two sides of the covenant. As we stand before this Word of God, we may ask ourselves, "What are we going to do?" What commitment will we make? What depth of devotion will we practice? Will we yield ourselves to these two inclinations to love God and His Word by placing His Word on our hearts? Listen to the Holy Spirit, listen to the Word of God and may our hearts be guided by the love and commitment that God has toward us, and may we grow in love – for love is at the heart of the covenant. Amen.
