10-23-16 Have you learned anything?

01 - SHEMA VIDEO 

Scripture                                                   Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.   5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 02 – tie them 

Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

THE SHEMA is the central prayer in the Jewish prayer book and is often the first section of scripture that a Jewish child learns. During its recitation in the synagogue, 03 – cover eyes 04 - mezuzah

orthodox Jews pronounce each word very carefully and cover their eyes with their right hand. Many Jews recite the Shema in the morning and evening. The Shema is written on a tiny scroll and placed inside a mezuzah.

          The Shema is 3 parts in one unity:

05 – Shema Words First Part: Shema = 6 words / Shema Yisrael, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad

           Response 6 words / barukh shem kevod malkhuto le’olam va’ed

After a pause Deut 6:5-9 is recited stressing command to love God with heart, soul and might.

06 – Three Parts Second Part: Vehayah = Deut 11:13-21 stresses the blessings that come through obedience to Adonai and the consequences that come through disobedience.

Third Part: Vaiyomer = Numbers 15:37-41 This passage concerns the use of the tallit, 07 – tallit 

a rectangular prayer shawl with four fringes (called tzitzit). One tzitzit is attached to each corner of the tallit. The reason for wearing the tzitzit is to remind oneself to observe all of the commandments of the Lord.

LESSONS I HAVE LEARNED

First 2 are right from the 10 commandments

Honor your parents – What was there to rebel against?

Don’t steal – Oct 23

Next is a life lesson where a biblical application can be made

Disappointments happen – endure them – Baseball at age 7

          Heb 12:7-11   Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Stole flags – from cemetery and sold them – learned respect for other people.

          This seems obvious because this person couldn’t get over what disrespect they had shown. When asked permission to share the story without their name – they said – by letting me do that maybe they can finally forgive themselves. Biblical application to make it a true life lesson. John 8:36 If the son sets you free you are free indeed. OR 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten

by Robert Fulghum
ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW about how to live and what to do
and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not
at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the
sand pile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned:

Share everything. 

Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush. (Does every life lesson need a biblical application? FLUSH Deut 23:12-14

Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself. As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement. For the Lord your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.

OK everything does not need a biblical application.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
Be aware of wonder.
Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest
word of all - LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere.
The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation.
Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any of those items and extrapolate it into
sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or your government or
your world and it holds true and clear and firm. (THAT IS WHERE BIBLICAL APPLICATION IS IMPORTANT)
Think what a better world it would be if all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about
three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are - when you go out into the world, it is best
to hold hands and stick together.

© Robert Fulghum, 1990.

So what?! – this was a sweet lesson about life lessons and how to connect the bible to daily lessons we learn. But what does that have to do with our text? – If I am not preaching the scriptures and the scriptures as Christocentric – Christ at the center – then what is the point?

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.   5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Where is Jesus? Jesus is the fulfilment of the commandments that you and I cannot keep. He kept them – all of them. He never sinned. He took our sin and they were crucified with him.

Jesus summarized every life lesson you and I will ever need.

09 – Scripture  Matthew 22:34-40

 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"

37 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'   38 This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'   40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Love Jesus with your heart/passion, soul/depth of being and mind/thoughts. Love Jesus – and show that new love by loving others.