Title Doctrine Sermon - The Only God
Contents
Title: The Only God
Text: Deuteronomy 6:4 verse 9
Hear, Israel; the LORD our God is the only LORD.
You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength.
These words that I am commanding you today will be engraved in your heart.//
Teach your children diligently, and you will preach these words when you sit at home, when you walk on the road, when you lie down, and when you get up.
You shall also tie it to your wrist as a sign, and put it between your forehead as a mark.//
You shall also write it on the doorpost of your house and on the outside door.
Today, I will testify of God's Word under the title of 'The Only God'. Whenever God taught Israel what God was like, he always provided field training. The importance of field education is also recognized by the education industry in Korea these days. Therefore, the school actively encourages elementary school students to do field experiential learning only during the vacation period. It is important to read books, but experiential learning by going to the site and seeing with your eyes, hearing with your ears, and touching with your hands is a three-dimensional education that will be remembered for a long time.
Likewise, when revealing the uniqueness of God, it is really important to examine the historical site. Because when we examine God's revelation in the historical context, we can know the purpose and reason for God's revelation.
The Deuteronomy text we read is one of Moses' last sermons preached on the plains of Moab. In the face of death on the plains of Moab, Moses did not meditate on his own death or the tumultuous years of his life. Rather, Moses puts what he considers more important than that into action.
So, what did Moses consider most important in the face of his death? The answer can be found in the text we read today. Let's read verse 4 together. start.
“Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God is the only LORD.”
That's right. What Moses considered more important than his own death was to tell the people of the one and only God to the people of Israel. He wanted to tell the Israelites who they were who had guided, protected, and led them until now so that they could remember clearly and engraved it in their hearts. Then, what kind of God is the God that Moses spoke of? He is the only God.
From the middle of verse 4, it is written like this: “The LORD our God is the only LORD” If we can interpret and interpret these words, it means that the LORD, our God, is the only one. Who is the Jehovah our God, according to Moses? It is the God who called Moses from the wilderness of Mount Sinai. At the same time, the LORD is the God of the fathers of Moses, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Exodus 3:6 testifies of this. “And he said, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
God, who appeared to Abraham, appeared to Isaac, and appeared to Jacob, has now appeared to Moses. And God, who appeared to Moses, revealed himself again to him as Jehovah.
Jehovah means “I Am Being.” It is the Absolute that does not need anyone's help in its existence. This self-revelation of God to Moses shows that he is completely distinct from idols and idols created by human emotions, thoughts, or human needs. And how does Moses strengthen that distinction? Uniqueness. There is only one God who exists by himself. This paradoxically proves that nothing in the world exists by itself except Jehovah God.
How should we serve the one and only God? The first is verse 5. We will read it together. “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
He told them to love the only God with all their heart, with all their mind, and with all their strength. To give all your heart, all your mind, and all your strength toward God means to give your whole being to God. Therefore, to love God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength means that your whole being, always and everywhere, looks only at God, depends only on God, and loves only God.
Here Moses is teaching the people of Israel absolute love for God. That love is the love that God requires of Israel. He thoroughly demands that we love only God, depend only on God, and look only at God.
Why is God so demanding of Israel's absolute love? We can see why through the history of Israel as revealed in the Bible.
In fact, there is no Israel without God in the Bible. As we well know, the ancestor of the nation of Israel was Abraham. God called Abraham and made a covenant with him. The first covenant is recorded in Genesis 12:1 and 2 like this. “Then the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country and your relatives and your father’s house and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, and you will be a blessing.”
What is the content of God calling Abraham and making a covenant? It means leaving your hometown, your relatives, and your father's house and going to the land God will show you. Then God will bless Abraham and make him a great nation. Abraham accepted this covenant. So they left their hometown and went to the land of Canaan that God had instructed them to do.
This covenant is once again embodied when Abraham turns 99 years old. The God who appeared before Abraham as Almighty God says in Genesis 17:4-7. “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of many nations. From now on you will not call your name Abram, but will call you Abraham, because I will make you a father of many nations. and kings will come out of you. I will make my covenant between me and you and your descendants from generation to generation to be an everlasting covenant, and I will be the God of you and your descendants after you. inheritance, and I will be their God.”
This covenant, which began with Abraham, now extends to his descendants. The God of Abraham became the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, and the God of his descendants Israel. Moses now remembers the only God who has chosen and blessed the people of Israel in this way. We remember Jehovah, the only God who appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as Almighty God, and to himself as Jehovah God, who existed as a self-existing God to bring about the Exodus. What is our proper attitude toward God who loves and cares for Israel? It is to love God. To love God, but to love only Him with all your heart, all your mind, and all your strength. So Moses taught the Israelites to love only God absolutely.
Second, those who serve the one and only God diligently teach their children the absolute love for God. The text is verses 6-7. We will all read it together. “You shall keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart, and you will teach them diligently to your children, and you will preach these words when you sit at home and when you go on the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”
This command of Moses is to absolutely love the one and only God. Those who teach it first must engrave it deep in their hearts. And it is to teach your children to ‘teach diligently’. How do you express that diligence? Whether sitting at home, walking on the road, lying down, or getting up... In other words, teach your children the absolute love for the one and only God anytime, anywhere, but actively teach them in the field of life through creative repetition. that is.
That's right. Those who absolutely love God must teach their children to love God. It is not to leave children unattended with the complacency that someday they will return to God's arms, but to teach them actively so that they can realize God's love and continue to educate them so that they can grow in God's blessing.
What would happen when the parents' generation did not receive such education in faith? In Judges 2:8-10, it is written: “Then Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died when he was one hundred and ten years old, and the crowds buried him in the territory of his inheritance, in Timmath-Jerez, north of Mount Gaash, in the mountainous region of Ephraam. Generations did not know the LORD, nor did they know what the LORD had done for Israel.”
Joshua and his generation certainly lived a life of faith toward God. This is testified in Isaiah 2:7. “The people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua, who saw all the great things the Lord had done for Israel.” But they failed. That is, they did not actively teach their children their faith in Jehovah God as Moses commanded. So the children did not know God and did not know what the Lord God had done for Israel. What happens to Joshua's descendants as a result? worship idols. Doing evil in the sight of the Lord. In the end, the wrath of the Lord was given to them, and the plagues did not stop wherever they went. Those were the years of spiritual darkness that Joshua's descendants were going through.
Then, why did God record these words in the Bible and show us today? Don't make those mistakes again. By thoroughly teaching our children the education of faith, we are instructing our descendants who have become children of faith in Jesus Christ so that they will never again fall into such sins and do evil before God.
The same is true today. We must teach the only God. We must thoroughly teach and teach all the things that God, who exists in Himself, has done in the history of Israel. Therefore, according to the command of Moses, the education of faith in God must be alive and overflowing in the field of life we are living at home and at church. That is why we all have a mission to reach out to those who do not know God and to help them also return to God.
I hope that both you and I will become the Lord's beloved saints who carry out that mission. So, I pray in the name of the Lord that the children God entrusted to us will grow with faith toward God through the Word in the Lord and be used as channels of blessing to reveal the glory of God in this world.