Well, good evening, everyone.

Okay, that’s an icebreaker there. Are we good? Can we hear me now? All right. Well, welcome, everyone. Good to see everybody here tonight. We’re going to be in the book of Deuteronomy tonight, chapter 10. We’re going to start in verse 12. Before I read the passage, I want to kind of set the context, because context is always important when we look at a passage of Scripture. And for the context of our passage today, we really need to recall some of the history of Israel. And so we find in Genesis 12 that God makes a covenant with Abraham. God said, I’m giving you a land, and I will make you a great nation. Your offspring will be as numerous as the stars in the sky, and all the families of earth will be blessed through you. Abraham has a son, Isaac. Isaac has a son, Jacob. Jacob is later renamed Israel, and his family becomes the nation of Israel. Jacob had 12 sons. One of those sons was named Joseph. And if you remember your Bible school stories, Joseph’s brother sells him into slavery. He goes to Egypt, but God is with him. God raises him up, and actually during a time of great famine, he rises to be second in command of Pharaoh himself. And it’s during this time that his family, of course, needs food as well. So Jacob sends his brothers, they come. Joseph knows who they are, they don’t know who he is. But through that experience, Joseph is able to bless his family, and Jacob and his family ends up moving to Egypt. And we see that at the end of Genesis. And as we start Exodus, we find that Joseph and Jacob have died. And then we read that another Pharaoh rose up, who didn’t know Joseph. And so he looks around and sees the nation of Israel and how God is blessing them. They’re multiplying, and he goes, okay, we’ve got to do something. So the solution is we’re going to put them in slavery. So he puts all the Israelites into slavery. And then later we find in Exodus that God appears to Moses in what we know as the burning bush. And God says, I’m going to use you, Moses, and I’m going to send you to Egypt, and I’m going to work my power over Pharaoh, over Egypt, and they’re going to let the people go. And you’re going to lead them out. And so we see that happening just as God promised. Moses leads the people out of Egypt, and he leads them all the way to this land that God had promised Abraham. And when they get to the edge of this land, they decide to send in spies. So they send in 12 spies. They all come back saying, the land is exactly as God said it is. It’s a land flowing with milk and honey. But 10 of the spies said, we can’t do it. The people are big. Their cities are large, and they’re fortified. There’s no way we can conquer this land. And only two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, trusted in the Lord and said, yes, we can do this. Let’s go do it. But in the end, the people trusted the majority report, and they refused to go into the land. And because of their disobedience, God said, all of this generation will never set foot into that land. And so Israel starts on this 40-year journey in the wilderness.

And during that journey in the wilderness, all but… Joshua and Caleb and Moses passed away.

So as we get to the book of Deuteronomy, this kind of sets the scene for where we are. We’re at the end of that 40-year wilderness journey where the previous generation has died off. And we’re before Joshua, where we find that the people go in this time under Joshua to conquer the land. And so as we look at Deuteronomy, we see that Moses gives… He gives a series of speeches to this next generation who were poised once again, standing at the edge of the promised land as their ancestors were before them. So he begins to prepare them. So he begins by reciting some of Israel’s history. And then starting with our passage today, Moses begins to shift from the history lesson to exhortation. Moses knew that he was not going into the promised land. He was disobedient. There was a time when God said, strike a rock, and he did. And that was what he was supposed to do. There was another time when he said, Moses, speak to the rock, and he struck it instead. And God said, because of your disobedience, you’re not going to go into the land. God allowed him to see the land, but not to go into it. And so I think as we think about that, when we look at our passage today, Moses is kind of in this father figure, so to speak.

He’s knowing that he’s not going in with this next generation. So if that were you, what would you want to say to the next generation? I think all of us would say we want to encourage our kids, our grandkids, our church to be faithful to the Lord, to set their hearts right before the Lord. But what does that mean? What would it look like for them? And what would you say? And so in this passage today, Moses gives us, I think, a fairly thorough picture of what should characterize the life and the heart of the believer. And though these words were written specifically to Israel, they have application to us today. And so with that, let’s read our passage. Deuteronomy chapter 12. I’m sorry. Deuteronomy chapter 10, starting in verse 12. And the word of God says, And now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? But to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I’m commanding you today for your good. Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens. The earth with all that is in it. Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples as you are this day. Circumcise, therefore, the foreskin of your heart and be no longer stubborn. For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God, you shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear. He is your praise, he is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen. Your fathers went down to Egypt 70 persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.

So the first thing I want to see in verses 12 and 13 is God’s requirements. Moses says, What does the Lord your God require? What does the Lord your God require of you? And so as he begins his transition from reciting history to this exhortation, he’s going to tell them what God is asking them, what he expects of them. And he does it in the form of a rhetorical question. The first thing he says is, Fear the Lord your God. The Hebrew word used here for fear refers to the highest reverence or highest honor you can give to someone. This is God’s expectation for his people. He expects them to revere him in this way. To look upon him as awesome and holy. And I think eight times in this passage, Moses says, Your God. Your God. And so I think what he’s paying for them is a picture between the true God and the gods they were going to see when they go to this land of Canaan because there was auto-worship everywhere. There were all kinds of false gods. And so I think part of what Moses is stressing is, This is your God. This is what he looks like. This is what he expects.

And so I think what he’s saying is, Your God deserves the highest reverence. And I think we need to see him as holy. As a holy God. I think it’s important for us to consider God’s holiness because it leads us to proper reverence for him. And I think we have a hard time, at least I do, of considering God’s holiness because we live in a fallen world. We’re fallen. The world around us is fallen. Everything is tainted by sin. And so when Scripture says that God is separated from sin, he’s completely set apart from sin, he cannot be approached by anything considered unholy. At least for me, that’s hard to kind of grasp and understand. But we’re given two throne room scenes in heaven. We’re given one in Isaiah 6. And in verse 3 it says, the seraphim around the throne are saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the other one, it says in Revelation 4, 8. And the four living creatures, we see them also saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come. So when we get glimpses into the throne room of heaven, what do we see those around the throne doing? They’re declaring God is holy. They’re seeing him as holy.

And so I think their worship is God is holy. We should have that proper view of worship ourselves. Sorry. My allergies are kicking up. My mouth’s dry now. I think the same should be true for us. A proper reverence for God, a proper view of his holiness will impact our behavior when we worship. And worship not only includes the songs we sing, but it also includes the preaching of God’s word. A lot of times we think about worship, we just think about singing. But worship, preaching is also a form of worship. And we should consider both of those and approach both of those as holy. And this is our proper attitude toward a thrice holy God. The second thing he says is walk in all his ways. So the first one was a right attitude. And if you have a right attitude and you fear the Lord and you reverence him properly, this should lead to the next one, which is a proper behavior and how you walk, what your lifestyle is like. So what is the proper behavior or lifestyle of a follower of God? And notice the word all. Walk in all his ways. And when God says all in scripture, he means all. So partial obedience is not what he’s looking for. He’s looking for a people that will follow all of his ways. This was true for Israel. And for them, God had made it clear. In Exodus and Leviticus, he had given his law. He had told them, you know, we know the Ten Commandments. This is the moral law. We see civil laws and how judges should behave. And how society should function as a whole. We see ceremonial laws with cleanliness and festivals and dyad and Levitical priesthood. There are very detailed laws.

So God’s way should not be a mystery to them.

And in Deuteronomy 5, verses 32 and 33, Moses says this a little differently. You shall be careful, therefore, to do as the Lord your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the ways that the Lord your God has commanded you that you may live and that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land you possess. So God had plainly told them what he expected, how they should behave. And the same is true for us as disciples of Christ today. The New Testament makes it clear the way we should walk. And our desire should be not to walk in our own way, but to walk in God’s way. And Jesus said it this way in Matthew 7, 13 and 14. Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide, and the way is easy that leads to destruction. And those who enter by it are many, for the gate is narrow, and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. So God’s way is not the easy way. God’s way is the hard way. But that is the way God expects. So both of these verses in Deuteronomy and in Matthew kind of paint this picture of a straight and narrow way that Israel must walk, and it’s the way we must walk today.

The next thing he says, to them is love him.

Love gets thrown around in our world today, and the world doesn’t know what love is. Love, most of the time in the world today, is something that’s emotional. I’m in love today. I’m not in love tomorrow. I don’t feel love towards you today. You know, it’s wishy-washy. But the love that Moses is talking about here, I think we could use the word devotion. He’s looking for devotion. And devotion speaks of something that’s decision-based. It’s how God loves. He loves us.

In 1 John 4, 19, he said, we love because he first loved us. God chose to love us first, and we reciprocate that love back to him. That’s what he’s looking for. We’re kind of reflectors of his love back to him and reflectors of his love out to those around us. So he’s looking for this heart of devotion, not some wishy-washy kind of love. He wants our devotion. And that, I think, requires a decision. We have to decide to love him. The way he decided to love us.

Jesus gives us the greatest commandment in Matthew 12, 29, and 30, which is actually a quote of Deuteronomy 6, 4, and 5. Jesus said, the most important, he’s talking about the greatest commandment, the most important is, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. That sounds pretty complete, doesn’t it? So, loving the Lord with heart, soul, mind, and strength is to love him with everything we can. That’s a picture of devotion, and that’s the heart, that’s what God wants from us, is to love him that way. He wants us to choose to love him that way with everything we can. And so, the next one he says is, serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. And so, a person that loves God with heart and soul, I think naturally wants to serve him with heart and soul. We want to do that. We want to do whatever he asks us to do. We want to be obedient to whatever he requires. And then he also says, starting in verse 13, keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord. So again, I think a heart that is devoted to God in this way, that loves him this way, naturally wants to keep his commandments and his statutes. We want to do what he says. So, I think as we think about these five requirements, fear the Lord, walk in all of his ways, love him, serve him, keep the commandments, I think maybe, maybe the central one we could think about here would be love. Because I think out of love, you give him proper reverence. Out of love, you want to walk in his ways. Out of love, you want to serve. You want to serve in any way you can. You want to keep his commandments.

So, I think these are the qualities that should characterize the heart of God’s people. I think that’s what God’s asking, is to love him in this way. And then Moses says, 13, which I’m commanding you today, and it’s not that these are actually Moses’ commandments, but I think he’s embracing God’s commands as his own. And so, he’s exhorting people to do what God would say. He said, I want you to do what God wants you to do. So, I’m telling you these things. And I think Moses had probably learned this by experience. He had gone through several things in his life. And by this time, he’s getting towards the end, he’s probably learned by experience, you know, God’s ways are the best ways. And so, I think that’s why he says next, this is for your good at the end of 13. Again, if we think about Moses in this parental role, wanting to, you know, say what he can to this next generation who’s about to take another step, you know, in obedience to God that he’s not going to be a part of. So, you know, he would be, I think, saying what we would want to say.

You know, as parents, we do this, right? We tell our kids things that are for their own good. Eat your vegetables. Brush your teeth. You know, get to bed on time. Don’t touch things that are hot. Pick up your toys. Study hard in school. And a lot of times, those things are met with rolling eyes, right? But we continue to tell them these things because we want to teach them responsibility and accountability. We want them to make good choices in life. And I think that’s what Moses has detailed for us here. This is God’s good way.

This is what he requires.

And now let’s see God’s right to make those requirements.

So God has a right to make requirements. And we’ll read the first one. Moses gives us three here. We’ll read the first one in verse 14.

Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. So the first thing Moses tells them, God is worthy of your commitment. Your obedience, because all things belong to him. And again, he says, you’re a God. The gods of the land of Canaan could not create anything. But we’re told from the very first verse of Scripture that God is the creator of all things. In the beginning, God. Whenever that beginning was, that gets debated. But whatever that beginning was, we know God was there. And so he existed apart from any material things, any material universe. He’s completely set apart. We also see, we see all three persons of the Trinity represented in creation. We see the spirit in verse 2 hovering over the waters. And we’re not told specifically about Jesus’ involvement in creation in Genesis, but we are in Colossians chapter 1, verses 16 and 17. For by him all things were created, he being Jesus, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. So we see that Jesus has an important part in creation. All things were created through him and for him, and all things hold together because of him.

So I’ve heard it said that creation was the will of the Father. It was carried out by Jesus in the power of the Spirit. But we see all three persons of the Trinity active in creation. So as the owner of all things, which would make him sovereign over all things, God can choose what he does with his creation. So what did he do for Israel? We see that in verse 15.

Yet the Lord set his heart in love with your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples as you are this day. God is the creator of all things, yet, the first word in verse 15, yet, he set his heart and love on your fathers. And those fathers would be the ones that I started with, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. God chose to set his love on them. It’s something he decided to do. He decided to set them apart as his special people.

And in Deuteronomy 7, 6, and 7, he says this a little bit differently. He says, For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession. Out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth, it was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you. For you were the fewest of all peoples. So Moses tells us here in Deuteronomy, out of all the peoples in the world, he chose Israel to be his treasured possession. A treasured possession. And so, you know, we may all have some treasured possessions, you probably do. It may be something your parents had, or something your grandparents had. Sometimes it’s a piece of furniture, sometimes it’s jewelry. I have a pocketknife that was my grandfather’s. So we all have possessions, but we probably have some that we consider more treasured, a treasured possession. And for those treasured possessions, we place high value on those things. We take extra care to protect them. And so I just think that’s a beautiful picture of God’s choosing to love Israel. He loves them as a treasured possession, as a treasured possession.

So then he says he chose them above all people. And in the verses we read in Deuteronomy, he didn’t choose them because they were great and mighty. He didn’t choose them because they had the most potential. God’s Word actually says they were the fewest of all peoples. Smallest, the littlest.

So I think we could say there’s really nothing in them to merit God’s favor. He chose to set his heart on the cross. He chose to set his heart and love on Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and down through the generations. And we find that he honored that. He honored this commitment to them even when they were disobedient. So we know all kinds of times when, you know, we think about Moses up on the mountain getting the Ten Commandments. And they see, you know, the smoke and the cloud and the thunder and the lightning. And they’re like, well, that’s it for him. We’re going to make a golden calf. You know, it didn’t take that long. So they were quick to divert. Quick to divert.

Surely we are as well.

And then he says at the end of 15, as you are this day, which was an affirmation of this continuation of the covenant relationship. Moses is confirming that God’s covenant promises still apply to them in spite of all their obedience because God decided, he honors his word. Even when they were disobedient, the covenant was still in play because it was confirmed by God himself. And we see that at the end of, at the last verse 22, where it says, for your fathers went down to Egypt 70 persons and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven. So the 70 persons was Jacob’s family. That was the number that scripture tells us that Jacob’s family was when they relocated to Egypt during that time of the great famine. And I think Moses is saying, God’s still blessing you. You’re still multiplying. You’re still as numerous as the stars in the sky. So the covenant is continuing even in spite of your disobedience.

So just as Israel was chosen, we are chosen as well if we’re in Christ.

Ephesians 1, 3 and 4 says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us, blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. It says he chose us before the foundation of the world, before we had any opportunity to ever love him, ever love him back. God says that he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, if we’re in Christ. That’s the prerequisite. We have to be in Christ. And he’s going to, he says it should be holy and blameless. He’s going to work in us to make us holy and blameless because Christ is holy and blameless. And I don’t know about you, but I think that should astonish us when you really think about it. We hear that. If you grew up in church, you’ve heard these kind of things over and over. But, you know, if you really sit down and think about it, that’s astonishing to think about that God would choose Israel. He would choose us.

So then in verse 17, he gives us the third reason. So we’ve seen he owns all things. He chose Israel to be in a covenant relationship. And now we’re going to see in verse 17 that he is Lord of all.

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who is not partial and takes no bribe.

So God didn’t create all things and then say, okay, have at it. Take his hands off. Now, God created everything, but he’s still involved in his creation. And so he’s still God of gods and Lord of lords. Again, as a, you know, contrast to the gods in Canaan. They couldn’t create anything. They weren’t real. But their God, your God, is the creator of all things and he’s the Lord of all things. And so what kind of Lord is he? It says he’s great.

He’s the greatest of all gods. Of course, he’s the only God. There are no really other gods, but we say God of gods, but there are other gods are mute, blind, deaf. They don’t exist. And so he’s the greatest. So he’s remarkable. He’s worthy of attention. He’s awe-inspiring. It says he’s the mighty. He’s the mightiest, which we refer to as strength in his capabilities. Then it says he is awesome. And this word awesome is the same word used for fear in verse 12. So again, it speaks to the highest reverence we should have for him.

Then it says that he’s not partial and he takes no bribes. So the great and the mighty and the awesome God is also just. He rules according to his moral law and cuts no corners for anyone and that would include his chosen people. So just because Israel is God’s chosen people doesn’t mean that they get a free pass on obedience. God is just and it says he would judge them without partiality because he alone can judge based on true facts. You know, sometimes we want to spin the facts. You know, when you go to court, you might want to tell half the truth until they drag it out of you. And so the judge might be fooled. God as judge is never fooled because he knows all true facts. So if you think you’re getting away with something, you’re not really getting away with something because God knows and he will rule in justice. And then in verse 18, he talks about three specific groups of people. It says he executes justice for the fatherless and the widow and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.

The fatherless, the widow and the sojourner were kind of the downtrodden. Or the defenseless peoples of that day. The sojourner, moving around, you know, so they were often on no land. Sojourner wasn’t owning land. A lot of the laws about land was from the husband, the man. So if you were widowed or fatherless, you know, often didn’t own land. So these people were often mistreated. And it’s interesting that God, you know, Moses says here that he calls them out specifically that God will show them justice. And in fact, he has some pretty strong words to say. Exodus 22, 21 through 24. You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry and my wrath will burn and I will kill you with a sword and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless. So you mistreat the fatherless, the fatherless and the widow, there’s a good chance your family may become fatherless and widowed. So I think these verses reflect God’s love for these people. And it says he cares for them, giving them food and clothing. So God deals in justice and he gives justice to those who might be downtrodden. So these are a few reasons that Moses gave for why God has a right to make requirements of his chosen people. All things belong to him. He chose Israel to be in a covenant relationship and he is Lord of all. In fact, as we look at scripture, God has always had requirements for humanity to be in a right relationship with him and he alone defines what those are. Think about Adam and Eve. They could enjoy the garden, but they couldn’t eat of the tree of knowledge and good and evil. And of course they failed. Moses here and in other places in the scriptures laid out God’s covenant requirements. So there were requirements for Israel to be in a right relationship with God. And there’s also requirements for believers today.

We can only be in a right relationship with God if we are in Christ. Jesus said it plainly in John 14, 6. Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. That seems pretty clear, right? The only way to have a right relationship with God the Father is through the Son. And so some today might want to say, well, God really has no requirements or they want to bend what are his requirements to suit them. They want to think they can approach him any way they please. But that has never been true in the entirety of God’s word. God has always made requirements for people to be in a right relationship with him and he has the right to make those requirements because he is worthy.

So we’ve seen the requirements laid out by Moses and we’ve talked about God having the right to make those requirements. Now, what is the response of God’s people? And I think Moses gives us two possible responses to God’s requirements. Really, two kind of hearts. We’ve already talked about one heart and I’ve called that the devoted heart. And Moses had a few more things to say about a devoted heart in verse 19. And we’ll notice here as we go through this, some of the things he said in verses 12 and 13 in kind of a rhetorical question, he’s now saying this like a command. You know what I mean? You shall, you do this. So starting in verse 19, love the sojourner, therefore for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

So in verse 18, the verses I read, God really loves the sojourner and they were sojourners themselves in Egypt. But God chose to love them and bring them out of that bondage. So they should have a heart that is compassionate to sojourners, right? I mean, it should be like natural. If you’ve been through something, a lot of times you have compassion for those who are going through the same thing. And it should be true here because they had experienced what it was like to be a sojourner. And I think also here is kind of a picture of what Jesus said is the second greatest commandment. The first being love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength. And he says the second one in Mark 12, 31, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So I think this is part of showing love to your neighbor. It was, taking care of the sojourner in their day.

And then in verse 20, he says, you shall fear the Lord your God, you shall serve him and hold fast to him and by his name you shall swear. So we talked about the fear of the Lord earlier. Now it’s a command. You shall fear the Lord your God. I can just hear the exhortation. You know, I’ve said this before. Now I’m telling you, fear the Lord your God, serve him.

It’s not enough to know the right thing to do. You got to do it, right? And so you got to do what God requires. And then it says, hold fast to him and by his name you shall swear. And these two phrases are covenant language. And they speak to the faithfulness or covenant loyalty. So it’s what the people must do to honor the covenant that God made with Abraham was to hold fast to him and by his name you shall swear.

And then in verse 21, he says, he is your praise. He is your God. He is your God who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen.

So this speaks to God’s faithfulness and all that he had done to deliver them out of Egypt, bring them through to the promised land, through the wilderness time. And so the heart of response to that should be a praise. He is your praise. It should be something you would want to do is praise him for his faithfulness to you when you’ve been disobedient to him.

So as we think about a devoted heart, that is one possible response. And I want to kind of sum up what Moses has said and what we’ve talked about to this point in kind of one sentence. The person devoted to God desires to willingly and eagerly love and obey him with everything within them, heart, soul, mind, and strength. That’s the picture of a devoted heart. I want to. That’s my will. And not only does that mean that I want to, but I want to do what you want me to do. I eagerly want to do it. I want to be obedient to you and I want to love you with everything that is in me. That’s the heart that I think Moses has described at this point.

But in verse 16, he paints a different picture.

And it’s what I think we would call a stubborn heart.

He says, He says,

Are you a stubborn person? Most of us say, no, I’m not stubborn. But we ask your family, they’re probably going to tell us a different story. I think we’re all stubborn to some degree. So Moses here is not saying that circumcision was not important. Certainly circumcision was important. It was the sign given by God to Abraham and his descendants to seal the covenant. It was a way to mark them as his treasured people, his treasured possession, as we talked about earlier. So here Moses is speaking not of circumcision in the physical sense, but of the heart. He says,

So it was never just about the physical act of circumcision that God wanted. He wanted their hearts as well. And Paul put it this way in Romans 2, 28 and 29. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision, outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the spirit, not the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God.

So Paul kind of puts in this couple of verses here kind of what I said. It was always about the heart. It was not just about the outward physical act, but it was about the matter of the heart. God was always interested in their heart. And so as I thought about a stubborn heart, I thought of this analogy. It works for me, so we’ll see if it works for you. So my grandparents had a farm. And I was there a lot as a kid. They didn’t raise horses, but they had horses. And I remember as a kid watching a guy try to break a wild horse. And so it’s just like you see in a rodeo, except in a rodeo, they get on the animal, it goes crazy, it’s trying to get you off, you’re trying to hang on. And then after a certain amount of time, you either get thrown off or you get off. But when you’re trying to break a wild animal, it’s a battle of wills. And so the guy gets on this horse, and he hangs on, and the horse is doing everything it can to get him off. And if he gets thrown off, he has to get back on. Because ultimately, his will has to win out over the horse’s will. And so presumably, you know, the animal becomes tame. So let’s say it lets you put a saddle on it. It lets you put a bridle in its mouth with the reins. It lets you get on. And then you start riding this horse. But then you go to pull on that rein, and you see the horse stiffen. You know, the neck goes the other way. You pull this way, the neck goes this way. You pull this way, the neck goes that way. And that’s a scary feeling if you’ve never had that. Because you know you’re not in control. You’re along for the ride at that point.

But I think we would say about the horse in this example, it outwardly appears to be compliant or obedient. But when it comes time to fully submit, it becomes stiff, stiff-necked or stubborn. It still wants its way over the rider’s way.

And I think that’s what Moses is saying about Israel. This describes their hearts many times. So they could go through the physical, the outward things. They could go through circumcision, and they could even do sacrifices and feasts and festivals and still have a willful and stubborn heart. Outwardly, they may appear obedient, but inwardly, they were stubborn. And they still wanted their own way. I think this is, this is a picture of the Pharisees in Jesus’ day. Because to look at the Pharisees, it’s like, hey, that’s what devotion looks like. They’ve got it all together. But Jesus had the harshest things to say to the Pharisees of any people group, I think.

Because they may have been fooling the people, but they were not fooling Jesus. Outwardly, they were appearing to be something. They were not inwardly. And we can be guilty of this as well. We can go through the motions of what we call the Christian life. We can go through the motions of what we call the Christian life. We can come to church because we know we’re supposed to. Or for kids, maybe it’s because your parents make you. You may come just to see your friends. And we can go through the motions of worship. You know, we can sing the words of the songs, not really listen to them, not really mean them. We can listen to the preaching. We may even shake our heads and affirm, yeah, yeah, but we don’t have the intention or the mindset of hearing from God and letting the Spirit work change in our life. It’s not enough. It’s not enough just to know truth. It has to affect your life. And I think that’s kind of a picture of a stubborn heart. It’s like, I hear what you’re saying, but I’m not going to do it. Other examples is we may read our Bibles, but sometimes more just to be able to check it off a list. Oh, I did my day-to-day Bible reading this morning, so if somebody asks me, yep, I did it. But I’m not meditating upon it. I’m not thinking about how it might apply to my life. We may do something similar with prayer. We pray for a few minutes in the morning, but throughout the day, we’re not praying without ceasing as Scripture encourages us to do. Our minds are elsewhere. It’s on our job and what we’ve got to do, but we’re not really in communication with our Heavenly Father during that time. And so just like the Pharisees, we can fool the people around us, and we can even fool ourselves because we’re good at lying to ourselves. We’re good at justifying ourselves. So what I may believe about myself and what I think I’ve got a handle on, my wife may say, nope, you’re fooling yourself.

So again, just like the Pharisees,

we can fool the people around us or even fool ourselves, but we do not fool our all-knowing God. He’s not interested just in our outward signs of obedience. He’s interested in our hearts, too. I wish it were true that this was a one-time decision. I could just decide, once and for all, I’m going to have a devoted heart, and then I’m just going to follow God from that point on. Okay? The reality is the life of a disciple doesn’t work that way, does it? It’s not a one-time decision. It’s a day-by-day, moment-by-moment decision. Do we choose the devoted heart, or do we choose the stubborn heart?

And sometimes we think, okay, I’m devoted to you, Lord, and we can get frustrated because I’m all in. I’m doing what you want, and the next thing you find, you’re off the narrow way in the ditch.

And we all have those experiences. And take heart, because in Jesus, there’s much grace and mercy when we fail. So we want to recognize that. We want to confess it. And then we want to repent of it. We want to turn from that. We want to learn from that experience.

Jesus said in Luke 9, 23, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

And notice it doesn’t say, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Because that implies it might be a one-time decision. Jesus himself said it’s a daily decision. So it’s in the day-by-day, moment-by-moment, that we really reveal our true heart.

And so as we grow as disciples in Christ, I think one indicator that we’re maturing from milk to solid food is that we choose the devoted heart more and more over the stubborn heart in our daily living. So in other words, we might say we get it right more of the time, times when we were younger. We’re choosing to go God’s way instead of our own way.

Excuse me. My allergies are kicking up. So to have this kind of growth, I think there’s a few things we must do if we’re going to grow as, you know, as we’re going to grow in Christ and become more devoted than we are stubborn. And we talked about this last Wednesday night with the guys. We need to be a student of God’s Word. Not just a casual reader, but a spiritual reader. God’s Word is the spiritual food which the Holy Spirit uses to grow us. So if you’re going to diet somewhere in your life, this is not the place to diet. God’s Word is where you want to eat as much as you can. Because it’s God’s Word that the Spirit used to work real change in our life.

Our church values, we use the word, we define this as word saturation. I love that word saturation because I picture a waterfall. And you think about the power, and you’re standing on that waterfall and using God’s Word. The power of God’s Word is just pouring over you and drenching you and completely enveloping you. I just think it’s a beautiful picture of what God wants. He wants us to love and know and study His Word. So another thing we must do to grow is have a life that prays often. Not only pouring out our hearts, but listening to God’s response. So I have a bad habit. Sometimes you want to pray, and then, okay, I’m off. And you need to build in your heart and time to listen. And I got to confess, I’m not a sitter. And so even while I’m praying, sometimes I find myself walking around. And I don’t even realize it because that’s just my natural thing. When I’m thinking about something, I get up and walk. And so being still before God is a hard thing for me.

We also must be in community with each other where we support and help and encourage each other as we walk with God. We talk about Christ-centered community all the time. So we need to be in God’s Word. Individually, we need to be in God’s Word. Be in God’s Word ourself and with each other. We need to pray, have a good prayer life ourself, and be in prayer with each other. I think those are important times. We always dedicate the last Wednesday of the month to prayer. That’s a good time to come and just pray with each other.

Sorry. Sorry.

So as we think about… All that Moses has told us.

So in closing, I want to say, let me summarize what I think he said in this passage this way. As followers of Christ, we must desire to have a devoted heart and we must practice the spiritual disciplines that lead us away from a stubborn heart. We have to have both. We have to choose. We have to desire a devoted heart. But then we have to do this. We have to do the day-to-day, daily things that is required to lead us away from a stubborn heart where we want to choose our own will to choosing what God wants. And again, as I said earlier, it’s not a one-time decision. It’s something we have to decide to do day by day. But the desire of our heart should be to have a devoted heart and then we must practice the spiritual disciplines that lead us away from a stubborn heart. And so church, that’s my encouragement for myself and for you today. Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for this day that you’ve given us. We thank you for your word. We just thank you for the truths that we find there. Father, you’ve made it plain in this passage what you require of us. You want us to fear you, to fear you, fear you, walk in your ways, love you, serve you, and keep your commandments. This is what the picture of a devoted heart looks like is someone that loves you with everything that’s within them. And Lord, we confess to you we have a stubborn heart so many times. We desire to do your will. We desire to go your way. But many times the stubborn heart takes over. And Lord, I just pray that you reveal those times to us and that we confess them to you and repent. Lord, that your spirit could work in us a changed heart that leads us to a more devoted life.

Father, I just pray that you would

just reveal who we truly are to ourselves. Father, sometimes we fool our own selves about who we are and where we are with you. And I just pray, Lord, that your spirit would work in us these truths that we could, Father, choose our desired devoted heart and do those things that allow us to walk away from that stubborn heart. And Lord, I pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. Would you stand as we sing?