Welcome to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. We are a Bible-Believing Church located
in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. We are proudly part of the Christian Fellowship
Ministries with 3,000 churches around the world. We are a church focused on world evangelism,
discipleship and church planting. Here we will share recent sermons from P.H.S.A. Church
and other sermons from throughout our fellowship. I am Pastor David Bigford and I will be your
host for this podcast. I thank you for listening today and we hope these messages are a blessing
to you and bring you closer to God.
Hello and welcome back to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. My name is David Bigford.
I am the pastor here in Salmon Arm and today's message I put together is, The Lord is One.
The subheading would be, Unity Begins and Ends with God. When I wrote this sermon, originally
it was back in February, and there was a standoff at the border. I will be using that as an
illustration as the basis for this message. The text I will be using is Deuteronomy 6,
4-9. I will kind of divert off of what I originally preached because there have been a lot of
comings and goings in society the last little week. We are celebrating Canada Day up here
today at the time of this recording. We also got to see the spectacle of the presidential
debates or debate last week. I will probably end up talking a little bit about that I am
sure. Anyway, as I put this together, if you can remember back, there was a standoff at
the border. We are living in this age of discord and disunity. We have to think, what is the
basis for these troubles? Why does it seem that everyone is at odds with each other?
We have a new war in the Middle East. We have the threats of the Russian-Ukrainian war spilling
over into the rest of Europe, all the saber rattling happening there. We also have China
who is constantly and always been threatening to invade Taiwan, claiming it is theirs. They
have even done military exercises recently to that effect to show us that they can take
it at the drop of a hat. When you contrast that to what happened last week with the presidential
debate in the United States, it makes an even darker potential image or thought because
now we really do not know who is in control of the US government in large part.
Anyway, let us keep focused on this standoff on the America's southern border that took
place earlier in the year. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is determined to continue the
battle over razor wire along the US-Mexico border despite the Supreme Court ruling allowing
border patrol agents to cut it while a lawsuit is ongoing. Abbott views the razor wire as
an effective deterrent to illegal crossings encouraged by the Biden administration. The
court's temporary order had sparked a standoff between Texas and the Biden administration
at the border. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton expressed his intention to defend the
state's sovereignty. The Department of Homeland Security argued that the razor wire hampers
agents' ability to assist migrants and complicates apprehensions. The legal dispute began in
October and Texas has also installed floating barriers and allowed troopers to arrest migrants
on trespassing charges, actions challenged by the administration in federal court.
So what does this mean and how are we supposed to respond to this as Christians? This is
such an interesting idea, the thought that a state would be able to or is having to argue
their own sovereignty while the federal government that is supposed to be there to protect the
states is saying no, no, you need to stand down and allow this illegality to take place
and to hamper and hurt your own citizens and your own residents of the state and you're
just supposed to stand aside while all this goes down. And all of this gets highlighted
even more as we're celebrating the founding of Canada as its own country and entity today
and also we have the 4th of July coming up in the United States this week and then we
have this contrasted by the really troubling events of the presidential debate that happened
last week because as we understand even though I live in Canada I am an American by birth
and the rest of the world all turns to what's going on in the United States because really
the United States still is the arbitrator of freedom in the West and if America was
to cease to exist as it currently stands who would take that vacuum, who would fill that
vacuum and this isn't a political discussion, I'm not a political pundit by any means but
what the reality is is that as Christians we have to remember who we're supposed to
be focused on. Are we supposed to be focused on a man? Are we supposed to be focused on
politicians? Are we supposed to put our faith in politicians? So with that in mind let's
take a first look at our text this morning. In Deuteronomy 6, 4 through 9 it says,
Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with
all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words that I command
you today shall be on your heart. You 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. You shall bind them as signs on your hands and they shall
be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house
and on your gates. So today as we are going through this piece of scripture which is commonly
referred to as the Shema, I just want us to really focus in on who we're putting our trust
and faith into. There's always going to be wars and rumors of war. There's always going
to be these tumultuous times in our body politic from the countries we live in. But the Shema
prayer is one of the most famous prayers in the Bible. It was meant to be and it is still
today a daily prayer for Israelites and it's constantly being recited today. Professor
of Classical Rabbinic Literature, Reuven Kimelon said that the Shema summons Jews to feel an
all-consuming love of God. So as Christians we too are told that we should have an all-consuming
love for God. When Jesus talks about the two most important commandments it's the love
of God, the Shema, and then the love of your neighbor as yourself. So Shema Yisrael or
the Shema is the central affirmation of Judaism. The prayer expresses the belief in the singularity
of God, that is in God's oneness and his incomparability. What's really interesting in society today
is how willingly we will leave our love for God or the incomparability of our God so that
we can worship idols made of stone or wood or idols that are men, worshiping the created
rather than the creator. So this prayer is traditionally recited twice a day as part of
the morning and evening services within Judaism. It serves as the climax of the liturgy of
Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year. Jews often recite the prayer as their
dying words, including Jewish martyrs who throughout the ages made it their final profession
of faith before being put to death. So as we live in a time of fracturing unions, the
dissolution of alliances, it is critical for us to understand the oneness of our God and
the perfection of the Trinity. We can only be unified in and by God and the Father and
the Holy Spirit. So let's look at the Shema, the purpose of unity with respect to the Shema
and how we should respond to the discord of our time, of the times that we are living
in throughout today or through today. So as we look at the political landscapes in Canada,
we see divisions, we see fracturing of unions, we see the rising up of other political parties
to take control. And while we might associate and align ourselves with one party over the
other, it's important to remember that we put God first in all of this. Similarly in
the States, with that troublesome debate performance that happened last week, it's important to
remember that we're not to worship any of these people running for president, but we're
supposed to put God first in everything. So let's look first at the Shema. We're going
to go ahead and break down the Shema to gain a little bit more understanding to this powerful
prayer and how we should place it within historical context. So now the first word of the Shema
is hear or listen, which in Hebrew is pronounced Shema, which is the title of the prayer. That's
where this prayer is named after because the first idea of the prayer is to listen. Now
Shema is really a common word in the Hebrew Bible and it's obvious why. Hearing is a very
universal activity. It is usually connected with the ear, as in Proverbs 2012 it says,
ears that Shema and eyes that see, the Lord has made them both. Now that seems simple
to understand, but if you look at the other ways that Hebrew authors can use the word
Shema, they use it to mean more than just hearing sounds. In Hebrew Shema can also mean
pay attention or to focus. So when Jacob's wife Leah, who wasn't loved, had a son, she
names him Simon, or in Hebrew Shemon, because she says, the Lord has Shema, that I am unloved.
So Shema means to hear, to pay attention to, and even more it can also mean responding
to what you hear. This is why so many of the cries for help in the book of Psalms begin
with a call that God listen. In Psalm 27, it says, hear O Lord when I cry aloud, be
gracious to me and answer me. So asking God to Shema is at the same time asking God to
act to do something. So listen to this excerpt that I pulled from the Bible project on their
amazing work that they put together for the Shema and the study of the prayer, the Shema.
It goes like this, now there are a couple of interesting things about this verse in Exodus.
In Hebrew the word Shema is repeated twice in this sentence to give it emphasis. If you
Shema Shema, meaning listen closely, but also notice that from God's point of view, listening
is basically the same as keeping the covenant. So when God asks the people to Shema, what
he means is that they listen and obey. And that's the last, one of the most fascinating
things about the Shema. In ancient Hebrew there is no separate word for obey, meaning
to carry out the wishes of somebody who knows better than you or is an authority over you.
So in the Bible, if you want to say, I will listen and do what you say, you use the single
word Shema. In Hebrew, listening and doing are two sides of the same coin. This is why
later in Israel's history, when people were breaking their covenant promises to God, the
Hebrew prophets would say things like they have ears, but they're not listening. The
prophets of course could hear just fine, but they weren't actually listening or else they
would act differently. And so in the end, listening in the Bible is about giving respect
to one speaking to you and doing what they say. Real listening takes effort and action.
And that's the Hebrew word Shema. So we're going to look at some other words that are
used in the Shema in Hebrew. And I won't bother with going back and forth between Hebrew and
English too much because I don't want us to get hung up on it. But another word that's
used in the Shema in Hebrew is Yahweh for the Lord. So Yahweh is the ancient Hebrew
form of the verb he will be. And this is the personal name of God, the God of Israel. It
appears 6,500 times in the Old Testament. Over centuries, the Israelites wanted to honor
the sacred nature of this divine name. So as they read the Hebrew Bible aloud, they came
to this name and they would stop saying Yahweh and instead started saying the Hebrew word
for Lord, which is Adonai. And then Ahava, which is the love, which means love. This
is a very common word in most languages as it is in Hebrew pronounced Ahava and is most
basically referring to the affection or care one person shows another. Ahava sometimes
describes physical affection like the King of Persia's love for Queen Esther. But there
are other Hebrew words that are more specifically used to refer to physical love. Ahava is more
broad. So Abraham Ahava for his son Isaac. That's parental love. Jonathan showed Ahava
for his friend David. That would be brotherly love. A whole group of people can have Ahava
as their leader, like when the Israelites showed love for their King David. Ahava can
even describe loyalty between political allies like Heryum. The King of Tyre loved David.
They had good relations and so Heryum wanted to help David's son Solomon build the temple.
These are all different kinds of affection described with one word, Ahava, and this helps
us to understand God's Ahava in the Old Testament. Ahava is an action and so in the Shema Israel
can be called to respond to God's love, Ahava, by showing love in return. You shall love
the Lord, your God, with all your heart. And just like God's love, human love should show
itself through actions. Like in Deuteronomy 10, 12-13, what does the Lord your God ask
of you except to fear the Lord your God, to walk in his way, to love him and serve him,
to keep his commands? All of these actions are centered around love. If I am not doing
them I don't actually love God. I just say I do. All of this is rooted in God's own eternal
love, like we read in 1 John 4, 19. We love because God first loved us.
So then we come to the definition of heart. Different cultures throughout history have
had different conceptions of how the human body works and this is also true with ancient
Israelites who were writing the Bible. They knew that the heart was an organ in the chest
that sustains life. There is mention of heart attacks in the Bible, Nabal whose heart died
inside of him and he became like stone. Biblical authors talk about the heart in many other
ways that might seem strange to modern readers. And that's because the Israelites had no
concept of the brain or any word for it. They imagined that all of the human's intellectual
activity takes place from the heart. For example, you know with your heart in the Bible. Your
heart is where you understand and make connections. In the book of Proverbs, wisdom dwells in
the heart and your heart is what you use to discern between truth and error, like Solomon
did when he was king. We still do this today. We feel the pain of a broken heart. We feel
fear at the core of our heart. It is because of this understanding that the Old Testament
writers would talk about having a transformed heart. The prophets believed that the only
hope for humanity is the total renewal of the human heart. Moses said that if Israel
was ever going to love their God, their heart would need to be circumcised, which is a powerful
metaphor about removing evil and stubbornness from our hearts.
So this elevates the idea of what it means, the whole heart. And it brings us to the next
word that's used to describe or define soul back into the Hebrew. And that word is nephesh.
The word nephesh is important because it's important for us to remember that it was used
to describe the whole person. The direct translation would be your throat. Like when the Israelites
are wandering in the desert, they're hungry and thirsty, and they say to God, we missed
the cucumbers and melons we had in Egypt. And now our nephesh has dried up. Our throat
has dried up. Or when Joseph was hauled off into slavery in Egypt and his nephesh was
put into iron shackles, he was shackled around the throat. But nephesh doesn't only mean
throat. Since your whole life and body depend on what comes in and out of your throat, nephesh
could also be used to refer to the whole person. So this helps us to understand the brilliance
of other biblical poets who would combine multiple meanings of nephesh in one place.
Like in Psalm 42, we read, as the deer pants for the water, so my nephesh, your throat,
pants after you. My nephesh thirsts for the living God, my whole being thirsts for the
living God. So on a physical level, your throat can be thirsty like a deer's, but then on
a, but then that physical thirst can become a metaphor for how your whole physical being
longs to know and to be known by your creator. And so that brings us to the next word, which
is strength or in the, in Hebrew, mayod. The Hebrew word mayod, and it occurs 300 times
throughout the scripture and doesn't actually mean strength. There's a perfectly good word
for strength in Hebrew, which is koak. I don't know how to pronounce that, but mayod is not
the primary word for strength. In fact, in the Shema is one of the only places in the
whole Bible where mayod is translated as strength. The most common meaning for this word is very
or much. It's what the grammar nerds would call an adverb, a word that comes alongside
another word to augment their meaning. And when Jesus was asked about the most important
command in scripture, he quoted this Shema and he used two words to unpack the meaning
of mayod. He said to love God with all your mind and with all your power. Both are human
capacities that can be used to love God in an infinite number of ways. In Mark 12 29
30, it says, Jesus answered the most important is this hero Israel, the Lord, our God, the
Word is one and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your
soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The word mayod doesn't limit the
number of ways you can show love for God. Just the opposite. The point is that everything
in a person's life, every moment, every opportunity, every ability and capacity offers a chance
to love and honor the one who made you. It is called to love. It is a call to love God
with all of your muchness. So now, so I know that this first part was a bit lengthy and
I want to unpack this amazing prayer a little bit more. It is this that it's both foundational
to Judaism and it's the culmination of this prayer in Jesus Christ. It is through God's
love that he sent his sent his son and that we can come to the father and unity. And that
brings me to my next point, which is unity in God. And for this, I want to use another
illustration I found, which is from the Constitution, the Constitutional Conference of the United
States. So this goes back hundreds of years during the first Continental Congress, Samuel
Adams called for a local pastor to come and pray because they couldn't agree on anything.
This happened at the second time when Ben Franklin in 1787, but this first time that
it happened was with Samuel Adams in 1774. The pastor Reverend Jacob Ducey, rector of
Christ at Church of Philadelphia, delivered the opening prayer of the Continental Congress
on September 7th, 1774. He did this at nine o'clock in the morning and he led this ceremony
with Psalm 35. So just reading a little bit, Psalm 35 verses one through three, great is
the Lord of David, contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me, fight against those who
fight against me, take hold of the shield and buckler and rise for my help. Draw the
spear and javelin against my pursuers says, say to my soul, I am your salvation. And then
he continued on with his prayer and it goes, O Lord, our heavenly father, high and mighty
king of kings, Lord of lords who doth from thou thrown, behold the dwellers of earth
and rainest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all the kingdoms, empires, governments.
Look down in mercy. We beseech thee and on these are American states who have fled to
thee from the rod of the oppressor and thrown themselves on that gracious protection, desiring
to be henceforth dependent only on thee. To thee have they appealed for their righteousness
of their cause to thee they have. They do now look up from that countenance and support
which thou alone canst give. Take thee therefore heavenly father under thy nurturing care and
give them wisdom and counsel and valor in the field. Defeat the malicious designs of
our cruel adversaries, convince them of the unrighteousness of their cause. And if they
persist in their sanguary purposes of their unerring justice sounding in the hearts, constrain
them to drop the weapons of war from their unnerved hands in the day of battle. Be thou
present, O God of wisdom, and direct the councils of this honorable assembly. Enable them to
settle things on their best and surest foundation. That the scene of blood may be speedily closed,
that order, harmony, and peace may be effectually restored, and truth and justice, religion
and piety prevail and flourish among the people. Preserve the health of the body and the vigor
of their minds. Shower down on them and the millions that they represent such temporal
blessings as thou seest expedient from them in this world, and crown them with everlasting
glory in the world to come. All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus
Christ thy son and our savior. Amen. When this prayer went out, there was an immediate
change. Those in the room wrote and attested to the fact that there was almost an immediate
spirit of unity among the Baptists, the Congregationalists, and the other denominations of the Founding
Fathers. There was a lot that they did not agree with, but the Spirit of God moved and
united them. How does God manage to do that? Is it by His grace and by His eternal dwelling
in us through Christ? As we look to what is going on in our world today, we need to remember
as Christians to put everything back under the blood of the Lamb, to bring everything
back to unity in Christ. For what we saw in the presidential debates last week, we need
to remember that we're not worshiping a man, we're not worshiping a political leader, but
we need to remember and cry out that God will protect us and God will help us and God will
turn our nations back to Him. As France just recently had some elections that looks to
be putting the right wing into power in France, we need to remember not to worship politicians,
not to look for our salvation in politicians, but to remember to cry out to God. Because
we've seen, especially in France, we've seen when revolution can be devoid of God, when
they had their revolution that eventually led to the Emperor Napoleon. A revolution
without Christ can become a totalitarian very quickly. So as we look at our nations, we
look at the arguments and the strife within our countries, we need to remember to direct
all of our worship back to the oneness of God. We need to remember that that's how we
should respond. And that brings me to my final point, which is our response to this world.
It would be great that if after that invocation everything went well for those at the first
Continental Conference. Similarly, it would be great if praying the Shema twice a day
over the course of several millennia would have been enough for the children of Israel,
enough to keep them in right relationship with God, to put their faith in God above
all other gods and all other idols. To fear God and to live free of the fear of this world,
we know that it was not enough though for the nation of Israel. And honestly and interestingly,
it wasn't enough for Reverend Jacob Duché either. Amazingly, this Reverend who had been
used so mightily in that hour and throughout the year of 1775, when he started to see things
go so badly in 76 and 77, he turned away from his country. He ran to the British. He fled
Philadelphia for England. But let us remember that God reigns, not mankind. The scripture
that was read by Duché, ordained by God, and then spontaneously prayed, inspired a
group of patriots who began their deliberations on their knees. This is what must happen again.
Oh, may the Spirit of God fill the delicates and move on our Congressional halls again,
our parliamentary halls again. So as we respond to the standoff that was taking place in Texas
that I started with, we have to remember the governments that fail to prosecute lawlessness
are an offense to God and to man. We can see that in Proverbs 24 verses 24 to 25. When
a government is not the avenger who brings wrath on those who practice evil, it is not
a minister of God to its own people for good. In Romans 13, 14, we can also see that. Those
who forsake the law praise the wicked, but those who keep the law strive with them. Evil
men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand all things. As is
evidenced by numerous examples, we have long lived in a land governed by those who do not
seek the Lord when it comes to protecting life, protecting borders, protecting children,
protecting righteousness as described by God's word. As such, we live in a land that will
surely not only have increasing instability, but one that without repentance will soon
perish. It is good that a state like Texas has a legislature and a governor that are
doing what they can to restrict the flow of illegal immigration, but we must pray and
continue to advocate for laws that maintain order and bring justice for all people. In
humility, we must pray for our governors and our premiers, our prime ministers, our presidents,
who have to deal with the inept federal governance that we see in many of these countries today.
Those that will lift up advocating wickedness. How can we advocate for justice and leading
others to love and kindness and teaching others to walk humbly with the Lord if we do not
first turn to our Lord? The Shema is important because it reminds us who is in control, but
it also is a command for us. So let's read it again in Deuteronomy 6 verses 4 through
9.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with
all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And these words that I command
you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. You
shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie
down when you rise. You shall bind them as signs on your hand. They shall be as frontlets
between your eyes and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your
gates. We need to hear and obey with all our hearts, mind and soul. We need to eat, drink,
breathe, dream, and live out this prayer with the new heart that we receive by salvation
through grace in Jesus Christ. With that, if I could have every head bowed, every eye
closed as I bring this message to an end. We see what's going on in the world today
and we need to have no fear and know that God is in control. It might not be great all
the time, but we have an everlasting loving God that we can look to. Our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ died for our sins so that we can put our faith in Him and live a life more
abundantly. With that, if this message is spoken to you and you know you're not right
with God, you know you're not right with the Lord, but you want to get your heart right,
maybe you've never done this and you want to accept Him as your Lord and Savior, or
maybe you've walked away from the faith and maybe put your faith in other men, put your
faith in politicians, put your faith in business leaders, or put your faith in musicians or
other idols. But you want to get back in the right relationship with God, then I want you
to signify that with an uplifted hand wherever you are. I can't see it, but God can see it.
God knows your heart. After all, He is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent. He is an all-powerful
God. So if you rose your hand and you mean this, I want you to repeat this prayer with
me. Dear Lord God, I know that I'm a sinner, but I know that you sent your Son Jesus Christ
and He died for my sins. I accept Him as my Lord and Savior and I repent of my sins. In
Jesus' name I pray, amen. It's a simple prayer, and the purpose of repentance is because you
have to be able to repent. You have to be able to walk away from your past. Jesus did
this with everybody He talked to. When He met the woman at the well, He said, go and
sin no more. The idea of that is to turn away, to repent. But with that, let's remember the
Shema. Let's remember to put God first in everything we do and everything we see, everything
we read, everything interaction we have. God is first. And I love Jesus' second commandment,
which is to love your neighbor as yourself. Because if we can do these two things, we
can see revival in our land. We can see a resurgence of morality. We can see a resurgence
of godly understanding and discernment. So with that, I just want to thank you for listening
to me this long, if you lasted. And I just want to ask that if you did, you'd like and
share and subscribe to this podcast so that we can get it out to more people. And if you
live in Samanar, we'd love to see you come out to church. We're in the building. It's
the Samara building we share with the BMO bank. We're right above them. Please come
out to service at 10.30 on Sunday mornings and 6.30 on Wednesday nights. We'd love to
have you come out. If you don't live nearby and you want to help finding the church that
preaches the undeluted gospel of Jesus Christ, reach out to me. The notes will have the contact
information, the show notes, because we have 3,500 churches worldwide. But ultimately,
I just want to thank you for listening. And I pray that this message speaks to you. And
I pray that you have a great Canada Day if you're in Canada and a great Fourth of July
if you're in the States. And I thank you for listening. Can't wait for you to come back
next time. God bless.
Thank you for listening to the P.H.S.A. Potter's House Samanar podcast. Be sure to follow us
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