Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One.Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God. Yahweh is one.Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah:
6 sermons cite this verse
… So he's referencing the most fundamental or one of the most fundamental assertions in the Old Testament. The Shema from Deuteronomy 6, hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. It's called the Shema because that's the Hebrew word for hear. So that was absolutely foundational. That God is one, and there is only one God. And that was unique among all the peoples in the ancient Near East who had a great pantheon of gods and goddesses. They dared to say, no, there is only one God. His God is one, and he is the creator God over everything. He's not a tribal deity. He's not just a God of the mountains or the plains or the people of Israel. He is the God over all the nations. So that was their fundamental assertion. It's monotheists and believing in one God. Only one God, therefore, the God who created all things and before whom all people must bow, then that one God, the Jews must worship him and the Gentiles must worship him. …
The Jews' probably most famous command in the Bible is called the Shema, which means hear. Deuteronomy 6, Shema Israel, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Then it says, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, strength. That is, you live according to what you hear. That's the idea. That's the idea. I'm going to give you another story from the Old Testament that some of you are familiar with. I hope all of you are, but there was a guy named Samuel who grew up in the tabernacle, you remember. When Samuel was just a little kid and his parents dropped him off to be raised by this priest named Eli, which is a big act of faith for a mom to do that, Samuel's a little kid and he goes to bed one night and he hears God speaking to him, but he didn't know it's God. He just hears a voice, Samuel. He wakes up, goes into Eli, the priest's bedroom, and he goes, what do you want? Here I am. …
… But the same word also, in fact, it's on the menorah in the foyer in Hebrew. The same word is, hear, or watch, that word is, hear now, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. It's the same word. Same meaning. Very powerful. By the way, that's Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 4 and 5. When God says, when wisdom enters, well, listen. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your strength. This is what's beautiful about wisdom and about loving God. It doesn't mean, okay, the Lord is one and you shall love the Lord. Do you understand me? God's not saying that. Because the Lord, because Yahweh is your God, love him. The one who is devoted to your salvation. The one who made you for a purpose. The one who cares about you. The one that you can run to. That's why we love the Psalms. …
I'm a good religious person. Maybe this Jew is thinking of the Shema, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one God. He knows. This is my hope. It's God. I don't boast in myself. Number three, I know His will. That is, I know what obedience looks like. This doesn't mean, you know, the will of direction and what I should do with my life. It just says, I know what it means to be obedient. Why? Because I've been given the law. I have God's supernatural revelation. Those Gentiles out there, remember, they had to sort of intuit. They had a sense of the divine within them, but it was murky and it was suppressed. The Jew is saying, well, not me, Her Honor. I rely on the law. From the hand of God Himself, mediated by angels, I have the law. I boast in God. I know His will, for I approve what is excellent. I know right from wrong. I can tell the difference between pagan corruption and degradation. …
… out of Deuteronomy. It was usually performed by a priest. He would raise his hands. He would face Jerusalem, and he would say, Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and the whole congregation would respond, Amen. Then the delegate would stand up, the person chosen to give exposition. The scripture would be read in Hebrew, then the interpreter would interpret it into Aramaic, then the delegate would launch into his sermon, his message for the day. At the end of the sermon, there was always a benediction given to the people by the priest, at which point they would all again say, Amen. Well, that liturgy created a dispassion. They became dispassionate, disconnected, detached, disinterested, because they always knew what was coming. It was sort of the same old, same old, same old, especially when the sermons were given by the typical rabbis, the typical scribes and Pharisees who gave these messages. Let me explain that. Scribes and Pharisees were slaves to quotation marks. They always loved to quote what the ancient rabbi said about this or about that. …
… let's turn to two short passages read earlier by Sean. First, Deuteronomy 6.4. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And then Matthew 28, 19. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, and then here is the key part, baptizing them into the name, singular, of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We want to hold these two verses and the truths therein together. Deuteronomy, it gives us the Israelite creed, the Shema, the confession that runs through Old and New Testaments. God is one. And then at the end of Matthew, as Jesus is sending out his disciples, he gives them this baptismal commission. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Three, each named distinctly, yet they share a singular name, one name, or nature. So this is where we're going to start. And let's look at now these two verses in turn a little more closely. 1 Deuteronomy 6.4. From the beginning chapters and books, the Bible is relentlessly clear. There's one God. One God. Not many gods. Not one God for one people. …