Deuteronomy 6 – Getting God’s Law into Your Heart
Okay, Deuteronomy 6. Very simple message today: getting the law into your heart — or, said another way, getting God’s way of how to live into your heart.
The Ten Commandments and the Covenant
Last week we learned that the Ten Commandments are not primarily “law” as we often think of it, but the description of God’s covenant with His people — a covenant that finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
We are not saved by the Ten Commandments. We are saved by the saving work of Jesus Christ through believing in Him. But the Ten Commandments describe how we are to live out that salvation with God.
The Shema: The Summary of Our Duty to God
Now the fact that the Old Covenant was primarily about God’s relationship with His people is made extremely clear when we get to chapter 6, because it gives the summary of our duties toward God — and that summary is love.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)
This is called the Shema (from the Hebrew word for “hear”).
God is so good as to give us a command that sums everything up — so simple that a three-year-old could state it. The world will give you a billion ways to live, but God gives you one: love.
This is the most important command. Jesus quotes it in Mark 12 and the other Gospels.
God Wants Eager Love, Not Begrudging Service
Today we want to see that what God calls us to is not just to begrudgingly serve Him.
You know, in the last day when Christ returns, who will begrudgingly serve God? His enemies. His enemies will come cringing before Him.
But His people — those who eagerly expect Him because they love Him — their relationship with God is marked by love, by eager love of Him. That is how we are called to respond to God’s saving work in history, and especially in Jesus Christ.
God wants us to respond to His works in the world with a deep and abiding — even emotional — love. This is what it means to get the law into our hearts.
Three Big Truths from the Shema
This is the roadmap we’re going to follow today. We’re going to see three key truths:
- We love through Christ alone.
- God alone defines what love is.
- The scope of our love is total.
And then we’ll look at three practical keys for cultivating this love in our hearts, which flow directly from the text.
1. We Love Through Christ Alone
We love because He first loved us. “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
I’ve had a lot of conversations recently where people ask why I have such a positive attitude toward the Old Covenant. A lot of people say, “The Old Covenant is bad — Jesus saves us from the law.”
I agree that Jesus taught against the Pharisees’ distorted teaching about the law. But Jesus Himself said: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
Jesus is the logical fulfillment of everything in the law.
- Just as God rescued His people out of Egypt (“I am the Lord who brought you out of Egypt…”), God rescues us in Jesus Christ by His atoning work on the cross.
- Just as God called them to give sacrifices, Jesus offered the one sacrifice of Himself on the cross that actually covers our sin. The blood of bulls and goats never took away sin — it only pointed forward to Christ.
- Today, the one way sin can be forgiven is still by Jesus Christ’s atoning death on the cross, received by faith.
Where the New Covenant brings growth is that Christ not only forgives us, but He also gives us power to walk in His ways. The Ten Commandments are no longer just judgment we cannot live up to. By the Spirit and a new heart, we are empowered to obey.
This is the promise in Ezekiel 11: “I will give them one heart and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them.”
That is what it means to love God and love neighbor as fully described in the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Bible.
This is why God went to the cross — not just to get you into heaven (though that’s wonderful), but to make you more like Him, to live in the kind of love that God displays.
2. God Alone Defines What Love Is
In this summary statement — “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” — we see both the center of theology and the center of practice.
The center of theology: There is one God. He is our God. He is close to us, and there is no other. Even though God is one, when Jesus the Son comes, the Fatherhood of God is revealed. Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to dwell in and among us. One God, eternal, three persons of equal eternity and united in their actions in the world.
This one God calls us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
This command points back to God’s own character. God’s love is displayed in laying down His life in the Son on the cross for you. “What wondrous love is this, O my soul!” “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
So when God calls us to love, He is calling us to Himself — to love as He has loved. Love that forsakes selfishness. Love that acts rightly toward God and neighbor. We love because He first loved us. We love because He is love.
And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.
God defines love:
- By His character (He is love)
- By His actions (He died on the cross for us)
- By His commands (to love the Lord your God, to love your neighbor, and everything spelled out in the Ten Commandments and the whole Word of God)
3. The Scope of Our Love Is Total
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
When the Bible gives a list like this, the first thing we should see is that together these words mean our love must be total — through every part of us.
But we can also look at each word:
- Heart — In the Bible, this often means intention or will. “Ezra set his heart to study the Law of the Lord.” To love God with all our heart is to love Him with what we intend to do.
- Soul — This speaks of our inner person, our very life. Jesus constantly challenged the Pharisees because they loved God outwardly but not from the inside.
- Might (or strength) — This refers to our actions, what we actually do. Jesus added “mind” in the Gospels, which fills out the picture.
Some people only mean well but never act. Others act outwardly while their hearts are far from God. God calls us to both. Love must involve intention, inner reality, and concrete action — just as God’s love was not distant but came and died for us.
We cannot honor God with our lips while our hearts are far from Him. The scope of love is total.
Three Practical Keys: Cultivating Love in Our Hearts
This text is very practical. It tells us how to build up love. As Christians we are given many gifts, and sometimes (especially if you came to Christ as an adult) the spiritual life can feel like one big experience of receiving. That’s real, but it’s not the only way God grows us.
God often wants us to dig deeper rather than chase the next spiritual high. The greatest joys and growth come through discipline, effort, and even hardship — not just ease. Like the difference between a rich kid handed a car at 16 versus someone who worked and saved for years for their first decent vehicle.
We are called to cultivate love in our hearts — to dig down deep, not just float through the Christian life, but to run the race.
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.”
Here are three ways the text tells us to cultivate the love of God (the fulfillment of the law in our hearts):
1. Teach Them Diligently
“You shall teach them diligently to your children.” (Deuteronomy 6:7)
This command is repeated in the New Testament: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
Teaching is primarily the parents’ job (the church helps). It’s good for your kids — and it’s good for you. If you want to learn something well, start teaching it.
Practical tip: Use a good study Bible (like the ESV Study Bible). Read a short passage, review the notes, make a few notes, then discuss it with your family. At church we try to keep all age groups on the same text each week so you can talk about it on the drive home or at dinner.
It’s not always easy (we’ve had plenty of tears and discipline moments), but it becomes more of a joy over time. Train them up.
2. Repeat Them Constantly
“You 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.” (Deuteronomy 6:7)
This is about totality. Talk about God’s word in everyday life — in the car, at the mall, over coffee, when you’re going to bed, when you wake up.
Our thoughts should drift to God’s word as we fall asleep. Our conversations should naturally include the Lord. God’s word — not the internet — should put us to bed and wake us up.
Practical encouragement: Turn the phone off at night and back on later in the morning. Spend that first hour with the Lord instead of bad news. Carry God’s word with you. Practice Bible memory (start simple: The Lord’s Prayer, Psalm 23, the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, the Fruit of the Spirit). You’ll be equipped to fight most spiritual battles with just those.
3. Use Physical Reminders
“You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:8-9)
The Jewish people took this very literally with phylacteries (boxes on the head and arm). But God doesn’t want boxes on your head — He wants His word in your head and on your heart.
The principle is still powerful: We are physical creatures. God gave us physical reminders like baptism and the Lord’s Supper. So use visible, everyday reminders.
Practical ideas:
- Put a Bible verse by your mirror
- Hang “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” where you’ll see it
- If you struggle with gossip at coffee, put Proverbs 26:20 on a mug
- Print verses and use them as Christmas gifts
There’s a danger of substituting Christian t-shirts or decorations for actual obedience from the heart. But if physical reminders help you remember to follow the Lord with all your heart, use them.
Conclusion: The Joy of Cultivating Love
Getting the law into your heart means:
- We love through Christ alone (He rescues before He commands)
- God alone defines what love is (not whatever culture says is popular)
- The scope of our love is total (intention, inner person, and actions)
- We must actively cultivate this love through teaching, repeating, and reminders
The good news is that God loved us so much that He died for us. When we believe in Jesus, heaven is secured — what a gift!
But there’s more: He also calls us to be like Him — to love like He loves, to live as His image in the world according to the love He has defined. And when we see His commands as good, growing in them becomes our greatest joy.