What Does the Lord Require?

What do you expect? It's an important question for any relationship. For instance, when you join a church, you need to know what they expect of you as part of that covenant body and what you should expect of them. When you get married, vows are exchanged so that you know what to expect, commitments are made. Any relationship has to be built on expectations. For instance, in your marriage, what did you expect to happen yesterday? Better, what did your spouse expect? And are you aware of what they were expecting? Any real commitment or devotion to other people, it requires expectation. We need to know what we expect from others and what they expect from us. This defines a relationship. The more clear we are about this, the healthier the relationships are. So one of the questions we need to ask as we're gathered as Christians, what do we expect from God? What do we expect from God? How we answer that question says a great deal about our religion. Do we expect Him to give us things, to love us, to make us happy? Do we expect Him to make us holy? to correct us, to discipline us? Do you expect Him to provide for us and protect us? What do we expect from Him? Our prayer life really reveals what we expect from Him because it shows us what we take to Him and trust Him with. We need to make sure that we understand what we should expect from God from His Word. And more importantly, or as important, we need to know what He expects from us. This morning we're going to look at a very simple message from a very thick text. We're going to see this. We can expect God to keep his covenant and he expects loving obedience. We can expect God to keep his covenant and he expects loving obedience. We're in Deuteronomy chapter 10. If you're new with us or if you don't have a Bible, please find a Bible. There should be one in front of you in the pew. We're in Deuteronomy chapter 10. That can be found on page 154 if you're using a pew Bible. Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Bible. It's the last book of Moses. And this is really the foundation of all of scripture. We're in Deuteronomy now as it's the second giving of the law. That's what Deuteronomy actually means. And the context here is very important because what we're studying is based upon last week's message. It's really a continuation of last week's message. The chapter 10 marker, it breaks up the sermon that Moses is preaching. When you go back and look at chapter nine, and I know many of you, if you're here for chapter nine, you're thinking, do we have to hear that again? Yes, yes we do. Last week was a challenging message from the word of God. We said if God's word says it about us, it must be true. And so we look to good things like we're made in the image of God, that's something that gives life meaning and purpose. But last week, we saw in our fallen state, after we've rebelled against God, God says we're unrighteous. God says we're stubborn. We refuse Him, we resist Him. This was the message last week. So if you go back to chapter nine, we can look over very quickly because, again, this is a sermon. Deuteronomy is made up of sermons. And if we look at this one point, chapter nine, verses one through three, Moses is telling the second generation, I, Or God, rather. God is saying, I'm going to go in, I'm going to destroy the giants. Trust me in battle. But the real heart of the message is in 4 through 6. Verses 4 through 6. When you go over, do not think for a moment. that it's because of your righteousness that I'm destroying those inhabitants of the promised land. No, it's because of their wickedness. Look at verse six. After repeating that twice, he makes it very clear. Know therefore that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people. We can't miss this. This is what God's word says about all sinners. This is what it says about us. We're unrighteous, we're unworthy, we're stubborn. If you look at verse seven, he wants them to remember something. Remember and do not forget. And he begins to set a case against the people of Israel. I can tell you how stubborn you've been. When God called Moses up on the mountain, He gave him the Ten Commandments. You heard the voice of God. And you couldn't last 40 days before you broke all the commandments. Namely, you built a calf. And you named it Yahweh. And you said, this is the God that delivered us out of Egypt. You had another God before me. You made an image after I told you. You shall not make an image. These people were stubborn. Moses had to intercede for the people of Israel. Then he reminds them that when God said, go up to the promised land, I've already delivered you from Egypt, the greatest power on the earth. Now go and take over these Anakim. And at that time you said, no. And so Moses had to intercede again. And Moses' prayer is important. He reminds God, no, you made promises, God. Your glory is connected to these people. Keep them so that the nations do not question your power and your glory. There was a promise in verses one through three, a warning in verses four through six. And then Moses builds his case. He's building the case. You have been stubborn. You have been rebellious. And I prayed for you. Moses is a Christ figure in there. He's the mediator that allows the wrath of God to relent because he's going before God on behalf of the people. Our story picks up after Moses's prayer. Look at chapter 10, verse one. At that time, it's continuing. But here, what we see is that God made a promise, I'm going to fight for you. He gave a warning, do not think it's your righteousness because you're stubborn. Here's the case, I've prayed for you. This is God's response. God is merciful. He keeps His promise and He renews the covenant. So the first part of chapter 10 through verse 11, this is God telling us the response. He renews the covenant because He's merciful. And then we see in verse 12, notice the transition, and now Israel. A very important change in the sermon. This is what God expects from you. So in chapters 1 through 11 of chapter 10, we first see God keeps his covenant. God keeps his promise. He renews the covenant. And then verses 12 through 22, we see that God gives clear expectations for his people. First half, God keeps his promise. The second, God calls us to keep his commandments. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that we can come before you and look at your word together, quiet our hearts, keep us from being distracted, help us to hear how merciful you are, how committed to your promise and your glory you are, and help us to see how gracious you've been in giving us, not only your grace, but clear expectations of how we can live for you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. First, God keeps his promises. Again, after Moses has prayed, he continues the sermon. He continues exhorting Israel. At that time, the Lord said to me, cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first and come up to me on the mountain and make an arc of wood and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke and you shall put them in the arc. So I made an arc of acacia wood and cut two tablets of stone like the first and went up to the mountain and the two tablets in my hand and he wrote on the tablets in the same writing as before the Ten Commandments, the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me. Then I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark that I made. And there they are as the Lord commanded me. The people of Israel journeyed from Baroth, Bnei, Jachin to Maserah. There Aaron died and there he was buried and his son Eliezer ministered as priest in the place. From there they journeyed to, I've got a cold, so this one really, really is a challenging G. And from Gugada, I believe is how you pronounce it, to Jephthah, a land with brooks of water. At the time, the Lord set apart from the tribe of Levi to carry the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord, to minister to him and to bless and to bless in his name to this day. Therefore, Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers. The Lord is his inheritance, as the Lord your God said to him. I myself stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, 40 days and 40 nights, and the Lord listened to me that that time also. The Lord was unwilling to destroy you, and the Lord said to me, Arise, go on your journey at the head of your people. so that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Now this passage, this first half of our text this morning, it has three parts. You see it most likely in your text because there's a parentheses in verses six through nine, there's a parenthetical here. The first five verses are God giving new tablets to renew the covenant. The middle section there, that parentheses, that's important because you'll notice he is assigning who is going to watch over and care for that ark that contains the covenant, the commandments, the tablets. That's why that parentheses is there. And then verses 10 to 11, that's God recommissioning. The recommission, go in the land, I've promised you, it's yours. Trust me, I'm fighting for you. So let's see, God keeps his commandments. First thing we need to ask, what are these tablets? All right, so what are these tablets? It's very emphatic throughout this passage. Notice what he says in verse one. Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first. And I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first." Verse four, and he wrote on the tablets in the same writing, the same 10 commandments that he had spoken before. There's nothing different about the covenant. It's the same 10 commandments. Israel had broken the covenant, they had rejected God, but here, God, he's renewing the covenant. In Exodus 20, he gave the first 10 commandments on the first two tablets. And because he had decided to build this golden calf, Moses came down and he threw those tablets down, signifying they've broken the covenant. Israel broke the covenant. God's ready to pour out his wrath. Moses, being a figure of Christ, he prays for them. God relents. One of the first things we need to see in this story, as we continue on from chapter nine, is that God is merciful. He's merciful to stubborn rebels. Look at verse five. Then I turned and came down after he had gone up. Moses is a mediator. He's going up and down the mountain to represent the people to God and God to the people. He's a priest. He's going up and down the mountain, and it's very explicit here. I turned and came down. After receiving the word, I came down and gave it to you. God sets up his mediator to show his people mercy and to give them what he expects. Now, this is what's really important here about the fact that it's, the words are like the same, they're the same words, the same Ten Commandments, just like the other tablets. There was nothing wrong with the first law. Extremely important to recognize here. There was nothing wrong with the law the first time. He doesn't amend it. He doesn't correct it. He doesn't qualify it. He doesn't change it. The problem wasn't the law. The problem was the people. It was their own hearts. It was their sin. It was their refusal to bend their neck before God. They were stubborn. Now these tablets, they're placed in the ark. This is an important place because in the ark, the ark's not going to go and it's going to be in the most holy place in the tabernacle or the temple. These tablets are part of the ark, so they're put before God in the most holy of holies, where God's presence comes down, because He's the one who's the guarantor and the protector of this covenant. We've seen this passage. He renews the covenant. He keeps His promise. He gives the same Ten Commandments. God is merciful. Where our sin abounds, His grace abounds. He has established a mediator to function like Christ here, which is Moses, where our sin abounds, his grace abounds. He's patient. He keeps his promise. This is good news. Christian, what we need to realize here is that being a Christian doesn't mean we're less sinful. It means we're more aware of our sin. That's what really being a Christian means. It doesn't mean we're less sinful. We're just more aware of it, and we're present of it, and we go to God, and we ask mercy for mercy. Christians, we're sinful people. Everybody else can see it. We have to stop pretending we're not sinful. The beauty of God's law is it reveals sin. The beauty of God's law is it allows us to see sin so that we can cling to His grace. The second thing we need to see in this story, again, because we see God responding to Moses' prayer, we need to see the power of prayer. Moses, first of all, he is a figure of Christ. The first thing we need to see in Moses is that he's showing us who Christ will be, and it's better with Christ. But the second thing is Moses is praying for his people. He is one of the people praying for the other people. In many ways, he's modeling for us how we should be loving one another, caring for another, leading one another, praying for one another. We can see that he's like Jesus because his prayer is like Jesus. Moses' prayer is focused on the glory of God. He says, God, the land that we came out of, Egypt, if they hear you wipe us out, they're gonna think you're not powerful enough. They're gonna question your glory. This is like Jesus' model prayer, hallowed be your name. Jesus is committed to the glory of God, just as Moses is committed to the glory of God. Moses' prayer is focused on forgiveness. Do not hold this sin against them. Jesus teaches us to pray, forgive us our sins, our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. As we think about how Moses is a model for us, We need to see that our prayers should be more confident than even Moses. Go back and read how Moses prayed in Exodus and in Deuteronomy. Our prayers should be more confident than Moses' prayers. They should be more sure. First of all, Moses didn't get to go to God and say, Father. That's a unique Christian privilege that Moses did not have. That's new. That's ours only in Christ. So as we're praying for another, we need to realize we get to pray to God as Father. We know that we have access to Him because of Christ. If we go to the Father and the name of Christ, we can ask anything and He hears us as His children. We have more confidence in Moses because we get to see the face of God in Christ. Moses did not. So last week we really looked at how Moses was a prefigure of Christ, how Christ is greater than Moses. Friends, today I want to challenge you. Your prayer life should be greater than Moses' because we have greater access. We have a greater mediator. Are we praying for one another? Are we praying for one another with confidence that God can change us, God can unify us? This is especially important as we think about the fact that we as a church, we're called to pray for another. Whenever we see sin in someone's life, who do we talk to? The first person we should talk to is God, because He's the only one who can actually resolve it. When there's sin in someone's life, the first person we should talk to is God. He's the only one who can really resolve it. Yes, the scripture says, go to a brother, talk to other, bring the assembly. There's other ways to talk to other people, but if we're not talking to God, none of that's going to be an effect. I ask you, do we trust God enough to change the sinners all around us? To go to him and say, Father, change, change this church. Do we trust God enough to say, Show me my sin. Show me where I'm failing. Help me to see my faults and give me the grace to repent. Do we pray with boldness in the name of Jesus Christ, the Father? Friends, the beauty of prayer are just three simple things. Prayer changes circumstances. Brian just modeled a good pastoral Christian prayer, a Christian prayer where he prayed for the health of the body, he prayed for the missions of the body, he prayed for the well-being of the body, that the Word of God would change us, convict us, renew us, heal us. We can pray that circumstances are changed, that the sick would be well, that the lost would be saved. We can pray and God changes circumstances. The thing we also do see that happens in prayer is that God changes us. This is probably what we miss the most. When we pray to God, we get to be conformed and transformed. He changes our desires, so we're actually praying what He wants us to pray. One of the greatest clear answers to prayer is simply, no, that's not what I want for you. That's my discipline for you so that you're changed into my image. God also changes in the sense that he relents. We see this in the story. God relents from his wrath. God saves sinners. He changes the relationship. God changes the way he relates to us because of our prayer. Very quickly, let me just look at the last two parts here. Again, I think the parentheses is here because it's telling the people of Israel what's going to happen to these Newton Commandments and the Ark. This is simply letting them know that the Levites, they're not going to get a portion of land. They're going to be ministers of the covenant. They're going to be responsible for this Ark and the Commandments. That's their inheritance. That's why that parentheses is there. It's very important for the nation of Israel. Secondly, we can see in verses 10 to 11, or finally in 10 through 11, it's a recommissioning. Moses says, I sat on the mountain the first time, 40 days and 40 nights, and the Lord listened to me. In that time also, he was unwilling to destroy you. He has been merciful. God is merciful. The Lord said to me, arise, go on your journey at the head of the people so that they will possess the land that I have promised. The mission continues, God's plan continues. Now let's focus on verses 12 to 22 with a majority of our time. God calls us to keep his commandments. This is a very important transition. There's a lot of transitions that are important in scripture. We saw one last week was Romans 3. After Paul walks through this long list of explanations how everyone's a sinner, everyone is unrighteous, he then declares, but the righteousness of God has been revealed. That transition changes everything. Or Ephesians 2, we were all dead, but God made us alive. These transitions are extremely important. Well, this one isn't important. After Moses walks through, I'm going to fight for you. You are rebellious, you're righteous, you're stubborn. Let me explain to you how stubborn you've been. Let me explain to you how merciful God is. And now, God has been merciful. And now, Israel, What does he expect of you? What does he require of you? Moses brings Israel to have to respond. He's calling us to respond to the mercy of God. I want you to see there's three parts to this section. There's three basic commands. Verse 12, fear the Lord your God. Verse 16, circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart. And verse 20, you shall fear the Lord your God. This section is worth memorizing. Go home, cut and paste it, write it out however you want to do it. Organize it according to those three sections. Moses is saying the same thing in three ways in these three sections. Fear the Lord, circumcise your heart, fear the Lord. It's what we call a good sermon. He says one thing in numerous ways, one message he's got here for us in how we respond. And the one thing that's interesting is that as he's building up this case, as he's building up this expectation or requirement, he first asks a question. What does the Lord require of you but to fear the Lord? He then gives a command, circumcise, therefore, the foreskin of your flesh. You shall fear, verse 20 is very explicit. But notice that the reason for each one, there's a rationale, there's a ground after each command. The first is that he's a God of gods. He's a creator of heaven and earth. That's why you fear him. Verse 16, the reason is He cared for you while you were a sojourner. He's great in power, great in justice. He washed over you while in Egypt. And then verses 21 and 22, He did mighty things for you. It goes from who God is more explicitly to what He's done for you. This is why we fear Him. This is why we are called to circumcise the foreskin of our hearts. Before we get into the specific commands, I want us to see how gracious God is. He's telling us what He expects of us. That's grace. God telling us what He requires of us is gracious. Can you imagine the kind of paranoia we would have if God did not tell us how to respond? What would life be like? What would religion be like if God did not tell us? Well, you can look at the religions of the world. They're full of human sacrifice. They're full of all kinds of torture, and it's quite scary when you look at the religions of the world. It's because they're trying to figure out what God wants based upon their own reason. That's darkened. Another way to think about this, think about the parent-child relationship. Imagine a parent who did not tell their children what they expected or required, but spanked them every time they were out of line. Think about the confusion and fear that creates in a child. All they know is they get spanked. They never know what was expected. They're never told what to do. They just know they get spanked and dad seems angry. That isn't a healthy parent-child relationship. A good parenting says, this is what I expected of you. And when that doesn't happen, then there's consequence. Can you imagine a child? That's our position here. Can you imagine how we would be as children if we never understood what God expected? It's full of fear and confusion. This is what I want to point out. God is so good to tell us. what He requires of us. He tells us very explicitly and very clearly. His Word is clear, it's sufficient. He equips us for every good work. We have to trust what He says. The second thing we need to see before we get to the details of what God requires of us. It's very important to recognize when this question is being asked, God is not telling you what he expects of you to be loved by him. That's not the context of the question. The context of the question is God's already said, I love you. God's already said, you're my people. God's already delivered them from slavery. Then he says what he expects of them. He doesn't say, if you're good enough, if you fulfill this list of requirements, then you can be my people. No, the context here is God said, you are by people. I am your God. This is what I expect of you. He is not giving a list of things we need to do to earn salvation. We can go to Deuteronomy 7, that obviously precedes Deuteronomy 10. He's already said, I love you because I love you. There's nothing great about you to love. We can look at verse 15. Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers. It's already happened. This is not what we need to do to earn God's love. He simply has already said, I've chosen to love you. That's the good news of the gospel. God simply says, I've chosen to love you. And the other good news of the gospel, now this is how you live according to my design, according to the way I created you for worship. God lets us receive His love, and then He lets us know what He expects. Now, one of the things we need to remember here as we're celebrating a day supposedly celebrating love. Love according to God is a choice. Love according to God is an intentional commitment. It is not an emotion, it's not something you fall into or out of. It is an intentional commitment, it's an affection, it's a pledge. Because remember, God loved us while we were still sinners. There was nothing we did to earn His love. There was nothing we did to draw His love. He chose to love us. Well, it's interesting to think about the fact that God loves us. When He says He loves you, He changes His relationship with you. We can think of this on a human level. Think about the first time you told that significant other, I love you. It's a pretty daring, bold move. Because once that's out there, it changes the relationship. Once that's out there, if it isn't received, you know, I love you, thank you, that changes the relationship into something awkward. However, if you say I love you, I love you too, I've been waiting for you to say that, that changes the relationship as well into something amazing. When God says I love you, he changes his relationship with you. Because you're no longer a child of wrath. You're a child of mercy. You're no longer outside of the kingdom. You're one of my children. You're at my table. It changes everything. What we have to see here is that Israel, they knew God's love. They saw Him provide. They saw Him protect. They saw His mighty right arm deliver them. We know His love even more because we know He sent His Son to die for us. There's no greater love God laid down his own life for us. Friends, the church knows God's love greater. Israel was a chosen people, every male being circumcised. That the Israel was a chosen people, every male being circumcised is a sign of God's chosenness. The church is God's chosen people, not a nation where every person, male and female, receives a new heart. This isn't a nation, it's a greater love that we know that affects us more deeply. But something is very similar between the church and Israel here. Love in relation to God is obedience. God first loved us. We love God because he first loved us. If we're going to say we love God, It means we obey Him, we serve Him, we keep His commandments. So when you look at this passage, we need to remember, this isn't what we need to do to get God's love. This is what we do because God said, I love you. And this is what we do to say, I love you back. This is what God requires of us. There's three things we can see in this passage. Verse 12, worship the Lord. He is the one true God. Second, repent of your idolatry because God is just and has chosen you. Third, worship the Lord. He is your deliverer. Worship the Lord. He's the one true God. Repent of your idolatry and worship the Lord who is your deliverer. First, worship the Lord. Let me read verses 12 to 15. And now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Think about how he's asking this. What does it require of you but? This is it. This is all the Lord requires of you. What does the Lord require of you but to fear the Lord your God? To walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and the statutes of the Lord, which I'm commanding you today, for your good. Behold, to the Lord your God belongs heaven and earth, on heavens and the earth and all that's in it. Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them. You above all people as you are this day. Now, what does God require of you? There's five things. Fear, walk, serve, love, keep. But I wanna first start with the rationale because fear is really reverence, that means worship. What does God require of you? To worship Him. All of these things are worship. Is God really worthy of worship? Can we complain about this expectation? I mean, look at verse 14, or yeah, verse 14. Behold, here he begins to give the explanation. He's worthy of worship because He's the Lord, the God of heaven, the God of earth. He's the creator. That's the first reason He's worthy of worship. He's the creator. He's the one who made all the things that exist. That's why He's worthy of worship. And then listen to what Moses says next. As the one God, the creator of all the things, everything that's in the earth, yet He set His heart in love on your fathers. He's narrowing it down. He's not just worthy of worship because He's Almighty God. He's worthy of worship because He's the God who is precisely focused in and said, I'm going to love you. So I've become very personal, very direct. He's worthy of worship because He's the God of all the heavens and the earth. And He's even chosen your offspring above all the other peoples. So the reason here is he's a creator and he's chosen to love you. This is why he has expectations of you. Let's walk through those five expectations. Fear the Lord, walk in his ways, love him, serve the Lord with all your heart and all your soul, keep his commandments, which are good for you. Fear is simply reverence. Grace taught me how to fear. What was he saying earlier from Amazing Grace? Fear is simply worship, having a reverence of God. And the word can mean terrified. There's a sense in which we come in the presence of God, there should be terror. Sometimes there's barely reverence. The beauty of the fact that we as a creature get to go before the Creator, we as a sinner get to go before the Holy God, there should be terror. Because of His mercy, we can come into His presence and know Him. He's awesome. He's great. We should have reverence for God. Secondly, we should submit to Him. Walk in His ways. This is the opposite of being stubborn. This is us saying, put your yoke on me, lead me into what you want me to do. Walking in His way says we recognize you are superior. We will submit to you. It begins with reverence, then goes to submission. Love the Lord your God. This is the greatest commandment, which we've already read in the service. Because we love Him. This means that our affection is set upon Him. We desire Him. We long for Him. It is a choice. Now, our choice to love God is different than God's choice to love us. God has to choose to love us because he has such a great love. He has to direct it towards the unlovely. Our problem is we have such a love committed to things of this world. We have to choose to stop loving them so we can love God. He is truly lovely and worthy of that love. We are not worthy of his. He says to serve. This means we submit ourselves, we commit all that we have, our hearts, our souls. It begins in our thoughts. We have to think like God. We have to think His thoughts after Him so that we can truly know who He is, what He expects. We have to recognize that doctrine does lead to doxology. Proper thinking about God leads to proper praise. And then notice the fifth expectation, the fifth requirement. Keep his commandments. Hold fast. Be careful. Treasure the law of God. Why should I treasure the law of God? Because it's good for you. It corrects us. It shows us when we're out of line. It shows us our waywardness. If we're going to be the people of God, we must agree to submit to God's Word together. If we're going to be unified in Christ, we have to let this one thing, the Word of Christ, unify us. It must stand over us, changing us, correcting us, so that we are unified. And notice the big picture of this question again. What does it require of you but? This isn't too far. Yes, we're sinners, we'll never complete the whole law, but God's saying, what does it require of you but to worship God, who's worthy of worship? What does it require of you to love God, who's worthy of love? What does it require of you to obey God, who's worthy of obedience? This is the Christian's reasonable service. Let's look at our next section, which is a little more complicated because we've got a metaphor. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart and be no longer stubborn. Verse 17, notice there's a reason again. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, the awesome God who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes judgment for the fatherless and the widow. He loves the sojourner, giving them food and clothing. Love the sojourner therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. Now, circumcision of the heart, this is clearly a metaphor. And I wonder if he's chosen this here because he just said, God set his heart on your fathers. Now, God gave the fathers a sign of the covenant love God had given to them. It was circumcision. So the sign of being a beloved chosen Israelite, a beloved member of the people of God, is the sign of circumcision. So I wonder if there's something here that he now transitions to a very specific kind of circumcision. Because he's talking to the second generation. Also something very interesting here. The people he's talking to are not outwardly circumcised. Remember, before they go into the promised land, Joshua's commanded to circumcise them. This generation has not been utterly circumcised. The previous generation, they had been. But that previous generation proved they did not have their hearts circumcised. Their hearts had not cut off their love for idolatry. They had not cut off their love for other gods. They had not cut off their rebellion against God. So the previous generation who were outwardly circumcised, they weren't inwardly. These people look like they're inwardly circumcised, but have not yet been circumcised outwardly. If we think about the metaphor, we want to make sure we get what this means, because it's a very important metaphor in scripture. And the first thing we want to look at is context. Notice being circumcised in the foreskin of your heart is immediately connected to no longer being stubborn. These two things are necessarily related to one another. If you're circumcised in the heart, you're not stubborn. If you're stubborn, you're not circumcised in the heart. Does that make sense? So these two phrases are necessarily defining one another. And again, being stubborn, it's being stiff-necked, like a mule who won't take that yoke to do what he's been designed to do, to do what he was purchased to do. He gives us a grounding to give us a bit more of a clue before we define what I think circumcision is specifically referring to. Look at the ground. First circumcision is related to not being stubborn, being unrighteous. For the Lord, your God, he's God of gods. He's the one true God. There is no other God. And then he goes on and he explains how he's perfect in power, he's perfect in justice. He doesn't take a bribe. He takes care of the weak. I believe that circumcision of the heart is a metaphor that refers to cutting the idols away from your own heart. I believe this is a metaphor that points to Israel and says, cut off all the things that you love like they're God, but are not God. Because he's the one true God, he's God of gods. And this is Israel's main problem. Again, they're building a golden calf, giving him credit for the Exodus while God's speaking to Moses. This is their problem. They need to cut off the rebellion against the one true God. The big picture again, Moses is explaining the Ten Commandments. Have no other God before me. Do not make an idol. Here, circumcision of the fourth skin of your heart, cut off everything you love as if it's God that's not God. Cut off our self-justification. Cut off our desire to sin. Cut off whatever we love more than God. Love Him with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Cut out the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life. Do not let sin linger around the heart. How much more is this true for us? Because the heart is where the Holy Spirit is dwelling. We are spirit and dwelt believers and we let idols linger where God has said, this is my temple. Cut off everything that competes for your love for me. Friends, do we pursue cutting off the idols that are constantly competing for our love? Do we continue to repent of sin? Do we continue to repent of sin? Really, there's nothing sweeter than repenting of sin. I know that may sound odd, and if it sounds odd, you should talk to me afterwards. But to come to the place where you can see your sin so clearly in light of the Savior, key phrase, in light of the Savior, it sounds crazy, but to see the gospel, and then to see your sin in light of the gospel, and recognize it, and let it have its proper shame, I can't believe that's been lingering in my heart. And then to look at the cross, to look at the Savior who stands before the throne of God and know that He's forgiven you for that. That He gives you the power to repent of it, to remove it. Yes, there's shame and sin, but when we see it in light of Christ, it's glorious. Because we get to repent of it so we can be more glorifying. We can repent of it and say, Almighty God, You are great. You are forgiving. You're merciful. You set my feet straight on Your path. how great it is to allow our sin to be seen and repent of it. We need to pray for more grace to see our sins and repent of sin so that we can glorify our Savior. The third point that says the same thing, verse 20, you shall fear the Lord your God, you shall serve Him and you will hold fast to Him. And by his name you shall swear. Now, what's different between swearing in God's name and taking it in vain is that when you're a Christian and you make a business deal as a Christian and they know you're a Christian, you're automatically connecting your deal to the name of Christ. Your word as is Christ's word, you're representing him. When you make a commitment as a Christian and you break that commitment, you just took the Lord's name in vain. When we swear in the name of the Lord, when we make any commitment, we're representing God. We must keep our promises. Look at verse 21. He is your praise. He is your praise. He is your God who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen. He is your praise. That's an interesting phrase. I believe what it means is that the only thing really good about us is what God's done to us. Anything praiseworthy and right, anything worth speaking of, is what God's done to us. The verse tells us that. He is your God. He has done for you these great and terrifying things. He's made you a mighty people. He made you numerous. He is the one righteous God. We are unrighteous, we must fear Him. Friends, we need to expect from God what He tells us. He will judge every sin of every sinner. If you're not a Christian, you can expect God will judge you in your sin. Unless you believe in Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ is the righteousness of God. He is the one who came down to live the life we cannot, so that when He died, the judgment of God came down upon Him for everyone who believes in Him. Either He's judged for our sin, or we are, because He's perfect in justice. That's good news that He's perfect in justice because we've been sinned against. We want others to be judged for their sin. We have to realize God's going to judge us for loving other things as if they're God. If you're not a Christian this morning, your hope is only Jesus Christ. He has died for sinners. If you believe in Him, He washes your account clean with His blood. Your sin is nailed to the cross. It's judged. It's done. Now you're forever free and forgiven of that guilt. And now you can hear what He expects of you. To know His love and to love Him. To know His ways and to walk in them. to know what's wrong and to repent of it, to see what's sin and evil and to keep yourself from it. If you're not a Christian this morning, please do not leave without talking to somebody about that truth that will save your soul. If you're a Christian, are we fearing God? serving Him, submitting to Him, loving Him, keeping His commandments, keeping our promises in His name, holding fast to Him. We have to realize this means we are cutting off the loves that keep us from God. We get to see our sin more clearly so we can keep it away from us. We must seek to be more like Christ by following His words. He gives us the grace to see our sin. He gives us the grace to repent of our sin. He gives us the grace to obey. Praise be to his name. Will you pray with me? Lord, we thank you that first you take our hearts that are rock solid, hardened against you. and You soften them so that we can hear Your Word and respond, and You give them new life by the power of Your Spirit. You take dead hearts and make them alive because You love us. And then You allow our hearts to be transformed to love You as You ought to be loved. Transform us, Almighty God. Do not let us be unchanged. Let us not let your word return void. Change us. Change us as a body so that when we're glorifying to you, so that we glorify you in what we say, what we do, how we think. We thank you, God, that you've made your expectations clear to us. We thank you that you've given us the grace to hear and to listen and to obey. Lord, help our unbelief. Remove from us our laziness and our love for sin. Help us, Lord, to come out of our sin and into the grace of Christ. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.