(Pause) All right. Well again, Happy Mother's Day, and we are excited about that. We're glad to be here and be in your house today in God's house, and we're excited to celebrate not only our mothers, but also to celebrate our Lord, our Lord, our Savior. We're excited about being in His house today because He's the one that it's all about. Yes, today we celebrate mothers, but we also celebrate our God first. And so today our message is entitled "A Mother's Love." And of course, it is Mother's Day. And so we want to talk about a Mother's Love, but we want to go deeper than that. We want to go deeper than a Mother's Love. And so we're going to begin this morning in a well-known verse that I'm sure people have studied for a long time and you probably are very familiar with it it's in Deuteronomy. So right away most people say oh I haven't really studied Deuteronomy very much. Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4. Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4 we're gonna begin there and we will go a little further in that but we will begin in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4. It says this, it says, "Here Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one." "Here Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one." Begins with here, "Oh Israel and the King James," or the new King James, and the new Mary of the Senate just says, "Here here Israel. But either way it's here Israel. Here that's a command. That's not just a casual statement. It's actually a command. Here Israel. Here Israel. And so that's something that I want us to consider. In the Jewish tradition, that word here Israel was Shema. Shema was the word. That was something that they spoke, that they confessed their confession of faith, that they understood this duty towards God, that every day they needed to be reminded that they needed to hear God. They needed to hear God. And so they would often spend multiple times a day, at least a few times a day, that they would remind themselves that they would take time to say that passage again. It was the central confession of faith in the Jewish faith. And to this day, the observant Jew will recite that at least twice a day. Here is real. Here is real. Pay attention. Think about it. Look at this. We want to make sure that people understand and that they know that they need to hear that they need to spend that time with God They need to understand that. What is it that they needed to hear? What is it that God said? What is it that was passed along for the people to know here Israel? Here what? The Lord our God is one The Lord our God is one. The Lord our God is one. Why is that important? Why is that important for the people to know? Why is it important for them to understand that God is one? Certainly wouldn't they understand that well and that day and time there were many polytheistic people. They believe there were multiple gods. They believed there was the God of Son and the God of wind and the God of rain and the God of all these things. They believed that there were so many different gods that they had to pray to and that they had to obey and do all these different things in order for them to live in a way that they would receive the things they needed. They needed to make sure that all of that was happening. And so when it says, "The Lord our God, the Lord is one." First of all, it's the Lord our God. Lord our God. They are giving that declaration of faith that God is theirs. They're giving that declaration of faith that the Lord our God, the one that we praise, the one that we know is ours, but that God is one. It's one in the fact that there's not multiple gods. It's one in the fact that it's the only God. It's the only God. The Lord our God is one. It's one. So there were multiple things going on there when they would pray that. When they would say, "Here Israel, the Lord our God is one." That was a morning confession, an evening confession. "Here that our God is one." Being one, the Lord our God cannot be represented by other things cannot be represented by other things. What do I mean by that? Well, let's move forward out of the Old Testament into today. We would do well every day to recognize here that our God is one. Our God is the only one. Our God cannot be represented by other things like what? Like money? Like prestige, power? Things. All the stuff that people tend to put above God. Our God cannot be represented by all these other things. Our God is one. Our God is be represented by all these other things. Our God is one. Our God is the God. Our God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Our God is one. And so when we think about that on a daily basis and we wake up in the morning and we say here, we listen. Our God is one. We recognize that our God is the only God. That our it's our God and He's the only God. And we begin our day in that way, what an incredible way to start the day and guess what? If we did the same thing at night before we go to bed and we end the day with the same thing, how incredible is that for us? Understanding that. Understanding that if our God is our God and our God is one and if we call upon Him every day and we follow Him then we would understand and know that this God, the only God is the one that we follow. That this God, the only God is the one that is in control. When we do these things and we understand these things this is a time when we can continue to follow God. The Jewish faith at a hard time understanding the Holy Spirit, the Son of God, and God to Father as being one. They had a hard time understanding that. But we understand that. It's a unity. It is the fact that God is three in one. God is three in one. We have God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Well, how do we know that that really is that way? How do we know that? What do we understand about that that helps us to know those things? Well, there is a word in the Old Testament. The Lord is one. It doesn't contradict the Trinity. Why doesn't it contradict the Trinity? It establishes it. The Hebrew word used for one is Eckhard. Eckhard is the one. That's what it means. It's unity.hard is the one. That's what it means. It's unity. It is the one. It speaks literally of a compound unity. What does that mean? A compound unity? Well it's like this. Think about it. It's one, but it takes all these things to come together to make that one. It takes these things to come together to make that one. In the idea of the Trinity, it's a compound unity, meaning it's the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit that make up the one. But guess what? That is not the only time that this particular word was used in Scripture. If they meant a singular one, not a compound one, they would have used a different word. We go all the way back to Genesis in the beginning of Genesis it says, "And the evening and the morning were the first day." So it says, "The evening is one thing, the morning is one thing, but it's the first day it becomes one." It was two separate things but came together to make one. We also find in Genesis where it talks about the man and the woman shall come together and become one flesh. So it's two people, a man and a woman, husband and the woman shall come together and become one flesh. So it's two people, a man and a woman husband and wife, they come together and make one flesh. And so this idea of a cod which is one in the Jewish population and the Jewish understanding is the thing that we can look at and understand it is a compound unity. It is a unity, it is one, but it takes more than the one thing to make up that one. And the idea of the Trinity, it takes up the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to become one. But the Scripture lets us know all throughout Scripture that it is one, that it is one. It's a compound unity and it gives us things like the evening in the morning, it gives us things like a husband and wife, and it also gives us things like the parts of the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle had a lot of parts. But it was one, Tabernacle. All those parts came together to make one. It was the house of God. It was the one house of God. All those parts came together to make one. So as we think about on a daily basis then we wake up and we hear God, we hear God and we say the Lord our God. The Lord our God is one. He is one. He is the only God. He is one but he is made up of the Father, the Son of in the Holy Spirit. He is one who puts us together as one body in Christ, multiple people, but we all come together as one body of Christ. And so we recognize that. And we live our life understanding that we began to instead of focusing on all the differences we focus on the thing that's the same. We as a country, we as a people need to recognize that and stop trying to focus on all the things that are different. Our God is one. If our God is one and we are a part of Him, then we are also one. And so the Lord our God, the one that is our God, the one that gave us life, the one that is there in the beginning. The name for our God and Scripture is Elohim. So we think about all of these things coming together and the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We make sure that we understand that and that God that we're talking about is the God Elohim. Elohim. That's the word used in the Scripture. That's the word used in the Israelites. For God. Elohim. Why is that important? We've heard this word before, Pastor. Why is it that you're pointing out to us? The name is Elohim. Why are you telling us that? Well, because first of all, I want to remind you of that. That God has a name. He's not just God. He is not just one that nobody talks about, but he is Elohim. He is a God that is important. And when we think about that word Elohim, what does it mean? Well, the word Elohim, there are three degrees. And each degree stands alone. Basically, what it boils down to is in Elohim, there are three degrees of that person God. The three degrees of the person God is the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit, and the three of them come together and become one. They become one. Seems like you're talking a lot about the Trinity today. Yes, I am talking a lot about the Trinity. Why am I talking a lot about the Trinity? Well, for a perfect reason. Most believers cannot describe the Trinity to someone else. They can say, "Well, I believe in the Trinity. We'll tell me about it. I don't know. I don't know. I have books that talk about the Trinity. Why? Because it's a complex thing. How do we really comprehend that? The best thing that I can tell you is it is something we believe in faith, but we can understand based on these things like the fact that that was a compound unity more than one. The fact that Elohim is a three-part thing and his name is Elohim and when we look at that and we can look at it together we can understand that from the very beginning this is how God told us that it was supposed to be. It's there, it's a fact and when we focus on that and we put Him first and we understand those things that we can walk stronger together as believers in Christ, we can walk stronger individually as a believer in Christ, all of the things that we can do, we do there to make sure that we follow Him. This passage is telling the Israelites, they need to hear God. We need to be listening. They need to hear God. They need to hear that it's the Lord our God and He is one. We need to understand that. We need to listen to that. Each day we need to be listening to God. Hear God. Do you know that? Let me ask you this. How many of you when you're watching television and a commercial comes on, the volume goes way up? It doesn't matter what you have the volume set on, the commercial comes on and they're screaming at you. Why? They want you to hear it. They want you to hear it because when you hear it, you remember it. So they want you to hear it. They want the volume up so that you hear that. And if anything else, you remember because it's annoying. But you remember it. You remember those things. The word says here, here, recognize. Our God is one. Hear that. Commit it to your memory. Understand that. Live it. Live that. Hear that. Commit it to your memory. Understand that. Live it. Live that. Understanding that. Don't live it thinking that it's not true. Live it as a positive thing. Live it as you're living in that same one with God, that unity that comes together as a believer in Christ. You become one with Him. And so therefore we recognize that on a daily basis and we wake up in the morning and we do that. I was talking this morning to someone I said listen we should wake up praising him. We should go to bed praising him and we should be praising him all in between. And when we're doing all of that during all those times all this other junk in the world doesn't have time to come in. Does I have time to come in? Listen here, oh Israel, that's what he's telling us. Listen to God. Don't listen to all the other stuff. Listen and understand that God is one. But also if we know him, we are one, we're one. with Him and we are in Him. Look at verse 5. Verse 5 says, "And you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength." Anybody ever heard that before? We've heard that before. We call it the great commandment. The great commandment. If you've never heard it before, you've never seen it before, then all of you need to look right. And there it is on the wall. Right there, every week. So everybody needs to look right. It is the great commandment. The great commandment in verse 5. And so when we look at that and we see what it's talking about, that we need to love God with all our everything. We need to love God with everything that we have. Understand if we know who God is and we understand who God is and we understand the life He gave us and we understand the fact that without Him we did not exist. If we understand that He is the only way to heaven, we understand all of these things that it makes perfect sense that we are to love God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our mind. And we're to love God with everything. Well, yeah, I love God. Do you show that? Do you show it in your life? You know, we can say, oh, I love my mom. If we never show her that, we'll never do anything to let her know how much we love her. Are we really showing that love? Are we just saying that? Is it really there? Are we absolutely loving her or are we simply loving her with words only? We can say, I love God, but if we're not following Him, we're not serving Him, we're not thinking about Him praising Him, we're not doing all those things." Do we really love God or we just kind of know who He is? It's a great commandment. It is a command to love God with everything we've got. How can you love God with everything you have yet you're not showing it at all? You're not showing it at all. We have to love God. It is the great commandment. We make certain that we do that. Jesus called this the great commandment. Of course he added the second commandment, love your neighbor is yourself. The reality is when we love our neighbor as ourself, then we're loving God. When we love God, we can't help but it to spill over. We love God. We want to tell other people about God. Just this morning I was having a new believers class and talking to someone who's recently given their life to Christ and I said, "Do you have any questions?" They said, "Tell me, how do I start the conversations to tell people about Jesus?" Hallelujah. That's what it's about. When we know Him, we can't help but want to tell other people. We want to see other people come to know Him. We need to live our lives in that way. We need to live our lives so that other people would even look at us and say, Hey, how do you live like this? What is it about you? There are things that we can do and as we live our life, people see it. We love God with all our everything. It's evident to people. It's evident to people. Here Israel, the Lord our God is one. Love God with everything you've got. Make sure that you pour that out to him because here's the thing. He loves you with everything he's got. He loves you with everything he's got. So we need to love him back. Look at verse six and seven for me. Verse six and 7. "Since these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart, and you shall repeat them diligently to your sons, and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the road, when you lie down down and when you get up. These words must live in your heart. They don't need to just be in your heart. They need to live in your heart. They need to be alive. They need to be living. They need to be constantly coming out. You need to understand that these are the things that you're supposed to know. These are the things that God has said to you, to love God with all your everything, to hear that our God is one, to do all of these things. We need to look at this and understand that these words must live in your heart. So first of all, you have to believe it. You have to believe it. If you come to a place in your life and you say, I believe it. I believe God is who He says He is. I believe that He sent His Son Jesus to down the cross for me. I believe that Jesus died and rose again. again, and I believe that today He is in paradise with His Father sitting at the right hand, He's interceding on my behalf. I believe these things. That's first and foremost. Do you believe? Do you believe? You have to believe first. You have to live it. If you don't believe it, you can't live it. If you don't live it, do you believe it? Are you simply live it. If you don't live it, do you believe it? Or are you simply giving it lip service? You have to believe it first. And after you believe it, and you trust it. And you've given them to, given your life to Him. Here's the thing. Teach them diligently to your children. Teach them to your children. How will they know if nobody teaches them? You know, today, they say the number one thing that teaches children. It's not mom and dad. It's not the teachers in school. It's not the Sunday school teachers. It's not the Sunday school teachers. It's not even their friends. The number one thing that teaches children today how to develop their worldview and who they are and what they're supposed to be doing is a little thing called the internet. Here's the thing. The internet is unfiltered. There's nothing on the internet that actually says this is good and this is bad. Everything on the internet is unfiltered. The average family today does not spend the time teaching their children the way they should go. Some think, well, that's the job of the school. We have them in school. They're teaching them the right things. Are they teaching them the things you believe? Are they teaching them other things? What are they teaching them? It's your job. It's your job. When God gave you those children, it's your job. Now it says, "Raisal up in the way they're supposed to go." The reality is, for most young children, the number one person that they spend the most time with and their younger ages is their mother. It's their mother. Moms, are you teaching those children the way they should go? Grandmothers, great grandmothers, you all have that responsibility to teach diligently these things to your children, to teach them the things that you know. In this Jewish faith that said not only teach them to your children, but teach them to your children and write the things on your forehead. Take it with you everywhere you go, teach it, believe it, make sure that your children have been diligently talk. Make sure that they know what they need to know. You know children, they learn so much in those early years, they learn so fast. They learn so fast. I've been reminded how fast they do learn watching my grandson. And you take him, you show him the shape, and you ask him the shape, and you show him how to put it into the shape-sorter. You'll remember all those things. And it's amazing to watch him. He takes that, and he quickly remembers that a square goes here, and a star goes there. He points out the color, he points out the shade, he's reminded of those things. He drives down the road with his mom and he says, "Pop-Pop's truck." Because he saw a red truck. He remembers pop-pop drives a red truck. He learns all those things so fast. Did you know what they also learn so fast? They learn negative things. They learn the negative things. When the parents are not there, when the parents don't treat them right, the parents don't teach them the things they need to know, they learn things through that. I've often said I have learned as much from bad bosses as I have from good bosses. I've learned as much from bad bosses as good bosses because I've learned what not to do and I've learned what to do. But as a child they can't differentiate that. Moms, you have a responsibility to raise up your children. Now, I'm not saying you're the only one. Dads have the same responsibility. It's just that today's mother's day. Moms, you have a responsibility to raise up your children and the way they should go. You have a responsibility to pour into those children. So that they know who God is is so that they know this wonderful God that you've learned through the Scriptures, teach them the words, teach them the Scriptures, show them what they need to know even at a young age. Grandmothers, if your children are not doing that with your grandchildren, you need to be doing that too. You need to take that responsibility. Great grandmother's, it doesn't stop. Because you see, we all have that responsibility for raising up the children, Sunday school teachers, fellow believers in church. We all have that responsibility for teaching our children about God. them diligently. You understand that across our country today, the biggest battle that we face across our country today is the battle for our children. Schools want to throw into classrooms things that children do not need to be taught. They want to put things in the classroom to teach them about alternative ways of living and call it right. They want to put in the classroom and teach them things that they say is okay yet in God's word, it's not. The internet will show them things. People that are doing things in a wrong way want to convince the children that what's happening is natural and right so that as they grow up, they will begin to accept those things. It's already been happening across our nation. It's already been happening. If we don't teach our children diligently, what God's Word says, if we don't live it out to them, in front of them, if we don't hear that our Lord, our God is one. If we don't hear that, if we don't live that, if we don't show that to our children, how will they know? How will they know? We need to teach our children diligently and raise them up. The number one thing that I talked to new believers about is to be sure of their salvation and no absolute fact that they know God as their Savior. Because if they know that, then that's the confidence they have to go forward in the rest of the things in life. Teach your children. Teach your children. Mother's love is shown as she diligently teaches her children. As she diligently teaches her children, her mother's love is known. In this passage that we're looking at, it says, "I command you today. All these words I command shall be in your heart. Teach them to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up, all of those times you should be doing these things. You have time with your children. We should be constantly showing them, teaching them, helping them to see. Our children are anxious to hear from us. They want to know things. Little children, big children. They all want to hear from us. They want to know what we believe. They want to know how we have done things. How have we gotten? Do you know that none of your mothers will understand this. I'm sure but did you know that a teenage girl and a mom Fight worse than any world war that's ever occurred A teenage girl and mom they fight Constantly but you know something amazing happens most of the time when that teenage girl gets a little older and she becomes a mom Suddenly her mom is the smartest person in the world And she's ready to talk back to mom again to figure out how to do things because this is brand new This is something that we need to know. I know mom did it. How did she do it? The reality is when we live those things in front of our children They learn when they learned then they're able to grow in confidence and they're walk with God. As they grow in confidence, they're able to reach other people. When they have children, they're able to pass on to those children. It says, "When you're sitting down, when you're standing up, when you're sitting on the front porch, when you're in the backyard watching the birds, whatever it is that you happen to be doing, take that time to share with your children about God. Oh, there's a bird. What a beautiful bird. You know God made that bird? You know God taught that bird everything it needs to do. Watches over that bird and protects that bird from the things that happen in this world. And even more so, God protects you. God protects you. God is there. You have to trust Him. Let me show you how to do that. Let me show you how to love God. Mother's love is shown as she diligently teaches her children. Mother's, grandmothers, great grandmothers, they're all there. They do all of those things. Hear my children. The Lord our God is warned. Hear my children. The love of our God is warned. The Lord our God is one. Teach them. That's what the Scripture is telling us. He is one and we can be one in Him. Mother's grandmother's great-grandmother's, it doesn't stop. In this room we have all of those. We have mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, we might even have some great-great-grandmothers in this room. There's a lot of grandmothers and mothers that are here. Keep teaching. those children. It doesn't take away the father and the grandfather and the great-grandfather of responsibilities, but they look to you. I learned really early in my life as a father. My children depended on me for a lot of things, but if they fell down and got a boo-boo, get out of the way dad. I want mom. I want my mom. There are just things that moms you can do that dads can't do. Teach your children. Be with them and all that you do. Don't ever stop. Teach your children. Guess what? Teach your grandchild and your great-grandchild. Teach the children in your Sunday school class. Teach your children's friends. Teach all of them as they come into your life. Your love never stops as you teach the children to love God. We love God. We love the children. We teach our children to love the God we love. We pass that on. We pass that on. If we can do that, then we can make a big difference in this world today. You know, the number one thing that every person that's asked the number one thing that says that they need more than anything else in this world is love. They just need to be loved. Every person who has ever been without, and they've struggled and they've had all these problems and they ask them they say, "Well, nobody ever loves me. Nobody ever loves me. God loves you. God loves you. Let me show you how." Let me explain that to you. Let me live it out in front of you. God loves you. That is one of the number one things that we all need to know. We all would do well every day to make certain, each day that we hear our God, that we hear our God. Well why did I say that? Well listen. God is always speaking to us, but we're not always listening. God is always speaking to us, but we're not always listening. God is always speaking to us, but we're not always listening. I struggled for a long time when I felt God call me to be a pastor. I was trying so desperately to figure out if this is what I was supposed to do or not. God had been trying to speak to me, but I wasn't really listening. Finally, in talking with my wife, she said, "I've known for a long time that you're supposed to be a pastor." You're supposed to be a preacher. I said, "Why didn't you tell me?" She said, "It wasn't my place. You've got to hear it. You've got to hear it." The world throws out all the noise. Why? Because if they could be loud enough, they can drown out what God is trying to tell you. We need to listen every day. As we wake up in the morning, we need to be listening. God, what do you have for me today? How do I need to follow you today? God, thank you for waking me up this morning. Praise God throughout the day at night. Thank you for being with me today. I want to listen to you as I go to sleep. God, I want you to be on my mind and on my heart as I close my eyes. If I can follow you that closely and hear you like you call me to do, then God, I know that I can walk in the way of which you have called me to walk. So my question for you today is this, do you hear him today? As a believer, as someone... Transcribed by https://soundwise.ai