church

INI
Second Sunday after Trinity
June 13, 2010
Ascension Lutheran Church, Tacoma WA
Paul Naumann, Pastor

WE ALL BELIEVE IN ONE TRUE GOD -- DON'T WE?
Deuteronomy 6:4-9

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you, Amen. This morning we give
our attention to the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, chapter six,
beginning with the fourth verse, as follows:

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! 5 "You shall love the
LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your
strength. 6 "And these words which I command you today shall be in your
heart. 7 "You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them
when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and
when you rise up. 8 "You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall
be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 "You shall write them on the doorposts of
your house and on your gates. Here ends our text.

In Christ Jesus, our risen and ascended Savior, Dear Fellow Redeemed,

One of the worst problems facing our society today is a philosophy called
"value relativism". It’s the idea that the difference between right and wrong is
determined, not by any absolute standard (certainly not the Bible!), but rather
by the changing standards of what’s acceptable in current society. We Christians
think of value relativism as a very modern evil, but it’s not, of course. A
hundred years ago, Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes endorsed
value relativism when he said, “The ultimate good desired is better reached by
free trade in ideas…the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get
itself accepted in the competition of the market.” In other words, what most
people believe at any given time – that must be the truth. The trend has
continued and been perfected by our modern politicians, many of whom seem
to shape their policy not from any deep-seated convictions, but from opinion
polls and focus groups. People in this country are asking the same question
Pontius Pilate asked two thousand years ago: "WHAT IS TRUTH?" -But it
seems like nobody is willing to answer.

You may be thinking to yourself, "Boy, am I glad we're not like that. We
Christians know what the truth is!" And it would seem that we do: a few
minutes ago we all stood up together and confessed our faith in the one true
God. We all say that we believe in the Bible as the only source of truth for our
Christian lives. But do we? Is that how we live? Does God's revealed truth
really govern our everyday lives? Today's text has some important questions -
and answers! - for you. Our theme this morning is:

WE ALL BELIEVE IN ONE TRUE GOD -- DON'T WE?
I. Do we confess the one, true, Triune God?
II. Do we offer the love that is due Him?
III. Do we keep His Word in our Hearts?

Our text this morning comes from a speech that Moses made to the Children of
Israel before they entered the promised land, Canaan. They were standing on
the eastern bank of the river Jordan, eagerly looking across to the land that was
about to become their home. They'd waited a long time for this day to come,
and they were impatient to get on with it. For many years they had served as
slaves in land of Egypt. When they finally escaped from there, they wandered
through the wilderness for forty more years. Now they were so close to the
promised land that they could almost taste the milk and honey. And Moses
picks this moment to stop and make a speech! But there were some important
things they needed to be reminded of, and the first thing was this: Hear, O
Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!

Do you know the difference between "polytheism" and "monotheism"?
Polytheism means, "believing in many gods." Monotheism means, "believing in
one God." The Israelites were monotheists; they believed in Jehovah, the one,
true, Triune God. They probably thought Moses' reminder was unnecessary:
"Come on, Moses - we all know that! Of course we all believe in one true
God!" But the people of Canaan were polytheists - they believed in many gods.
Baal, Ashteroth, Anat, Aqat, Molech. And Moses knew that the many false
gods of Canaan would have their effect on Israel. Eventually, the people would
turn away from the Lord, and bow themselves down to these idols.

What about us members of Ascension Lutheran Church? We all believe in one
true God -- don't we? Don't we all confess our faith in the one, true, Triune
God? We certainly do on Sundays! But what about the rest of the week? In our
everyday lives, are we still "monotheists", or do we have many different gods?
One thing's for sure - we definitely live in a polytheistic society. The people
around us worship many different "gods" - chief among which is a god called
The Almighty Dollar. Is money a god that you bow down to and serve, that you
rely on to solve all your problems? Jesus said, "You cannot serve God and
mammon." Lk 16:13. What about power - is that your god? Success -- your
career – even your family – does your service to any of these come before your
service to God?

Moses continues with the First Commandment - a passage that each of us
probably knows from memory: You shall love the LORD your God with all
your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. I'd like you to take a
moment and really think about what involves -- Jesus called this "the first and
great commandment." It's been said that, if we truly kept this First
Commandment, we wouldn't need the other nine! But do we really offer God
the love that is due to Him?

This First Commandment is a wonderful tool to inspire a humble spirit in a
Christian. It snaps us back to reality when we forget about our sinfulness. It's a
sad fact that we believers tend to lose sight of how grievously we have offended
God with our sins. We tend to think that, if we haven't killed anyone, haven't
committed adultery, and haven't physically stolen anything, well -- we must be
doing a pretty good job of keeping God's Commandments! But go back to this
First Commandment - do you love the Lord? Really love Him, 24/7, With all
your heart, all your soul, and all your strength? You don’t have to think about
that very long, do you?Here even the most dedicated, pious Christian has to
hang his head. This is one place where all of us fall pathetically short of
fulfilling God's Law.

How can we even know what kind of love that is? And how can we possibly
carry out that love? The answer to both those questions lies in one simple word:
Jesus! We can see what true love is when we look at what love drove God to do
for sinful mankind. The Apostle John asks: Do you want to know what love
really is? "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent
His Son to be the payment for our sins." I Jn 4:10. In love, God handed over
His innocent Son to be tortured and executed on the cross for us! For sinful
people who were actually his enemies by nature! And when it comes to fulfilling
God's commandment of love - showing our love for Him in return - we simply
can't do it. So Jesus did it for us. Where our love of God is imperfect and
flawed, His love was perfect. Where our devotion to God has gaps - periods
where we forget our God for hours or even days at a time - Jesus' devotion was
perfect. And His perfect devotion and love for God becomes ours, by faith. It's
a free gift, ours for the taking! That's the Good News of the Gospel that we
hear in Romans: "The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the
Holy Spirit who was given to us." Rom 5:5.

I once had a roommate in college who had a real aversion to the Christian faith.
"You Christians," he said, "You make me sick. The rest of us strive and
struggle to find life's answers, but not you. You've got this Book. And whatever
the Book says, that's what you believe!" He meant it as an insult, of course, but
on second thought I realized what a comforting truth that is. Just think about it!
As a Christian, you don't have to wonder where you came from - the Book says,
"Everyone who is called by My name, Whom I have created for My glory; I
have formed him, yes, I have made him." You don't have to wonder where
you're going -- the Book says, "I have prepared a place for you, that where I am,
there ye may be also." You don't have to search high and low to find the
meaning of your life -- the Book says, You are a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the
praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. 1 Pet
2:9. You don't have to struggle and strive to solve the problem of your own sin
and guilt -- the Book says, He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor
punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the
earth, So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; As far as the east is
from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us. Psa
103:10-12.

So cheer up! The message of God's Word is this: that through Christ, God's
commandment of love has been completely fulfilled. On the cross, your Savior
gained for you a complete pardon for each one of those sins that burden your
conscience. What a wonderful Word that is! The question now is, will we keep
this Word in our hearts? Moses says, And these words which I command you
today shall be in your heart. "You shall teach them diligently to your children,
and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way,
when you lie down, and when you rise up. "You shall bind them as a sign on
your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

I'm going to teach you a Hebrew word. The word is "tefillin." Tefillin were
little square boxes of leather which contained Scripture verses. Jews who
wanted to appear very religious (especially the Pharisees) would hang these
little boxes by leather thongs so that they dangled from their wrists and on their
forehead between their eyes. That's how they carried out God's command to
"keep His words in their heart." Jesus said that they had God's Word on the
outside, but not on the inside: "All their works they do to be seen by men. They
make their phylacteries ("tefillin") broad and enlarge the borders of their
garments." Matt 23:5.

But the Holy Spirit has given us true faith in the redeeming Son of God. His
Word is in our hearts, not just tied to our wrists! Because of what Christ has
done for us, we're free from sin and death. Our future is bright and our
salvation is assured. Victory has been promised us! How, then, can we possibly
keep our joy over God's Word a once-a-week celebration? We can't. It's got to
flow over into our everyday lives. We take care to teach that Word faithfully to
our children. We have opportunities to speak about God's Word every day: with
coworkers, neighbors, relatives and acquaintances. Let's take advantage of
those opportunities. Let’s make the most of every one of those “divine
encounters” that the Lord sends our way each day!

Finally, Moses says of God's words, "You shall write them on the doorposts of
your house and on your gates." I knew a Christian husband and father once who
took great care in crafting a beautiful plaque for his front door. On the plaque
were inscribed the words of Joshua, chapter 24, verse 15: "Choose for
yourselves this day whom you will serve -- but as for me and my house, we will
serve the Lord." But you know what impressed me most about that fellow? Not
that he had those words written on his door, but that I knew he had those
words written in his heart as well.

Is truth relative? Is the right way, after all, impossible to find? Not for us, it
isn't! We have the irrefutable Word of our Savior, who said, "I am the Way, the
Truth and the Life." Jesus is the way we're walking, the truth God has revealed
to us, and the eternal life we're waiting to inherit. After all - we all believe in
one true God, don't we? By His grace -- yes, we do! AMEN.