What does the Lord require?
Intro:
a few years ago, I was involved in a public debate against a Muslim speaker on the topic – The Revival of humanity: Islam or Christianity. Now that’s a fabulous undergraduate topic if ever there was one, the revival of humanity argued for and defended in 50 lunchtime minutes. It was great fun for many reasons, not least was the fact that the original choice of speaker for the other side was arrested by the Federal police and ejected from the country for potential terrorist activities, which challenged my commitment to the occasion a little! And it was certainly interesting to go into a lecture threatre of 400 people, 300 of whom wore either scarves or thick beards.
One of the points made by the replacement Muslim speaker, who turned out to be a bit of a mouse it seemed to me, was that Islam was clearly superior to Christianity, and represented the clear way forward for the revival of humanity, since it was a comprehensive religion, it covered every situation – it told when, how and how much to pray, which way to face and what to say; it told you what to have for breakfast lunch and dinner, who to marry, what job to do, everything. There was no part of life where there was not a law or a rule that would apply to it, and instruct you in the way of Allah.
now, I’m not sure if he read the non-Muslim component audience too well, since having a rule that told you precisely what to wear and what to eat and what to pray and how much money to give away doesn’t strike me as the kind of thing which would be an advertising agencies dream project – the Gruen transfer would have a field day with that sort of thing.
it’s important to see the contrast with Moses, and the Biblical heart of integrity. What we find as we turn to the Scriptures is 3 things: first, a unrelenting starting point which is God in his grace. Our life for God is always and only ever a response to his life for us, his strength exerted for us, his gifts given to us. Second, that response takes the most basic form of an attitude, or much better, a heart, a stance, an orientation towards God of full and thorough devotion; and then third, some specific moments of points in life where this will make its way into practice, given not so much to cover the field of every minute of every day of your life, but rather, given as a concrete signpost to what a heart on fire for God will result in.
Big picture
and that’s exactly what we see here in Deut 10, one of the most beautiful and powerful summaries of the vision Moses presents to Israel of life lived for the God who has saved her. Listen to the big picture of the first couple of verses again:
12 So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only 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, 13 and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being.
here is a kaleidoscope of virtues – fear the Lord your God, which means to make the Lord the person in your life you least want to offend; walk in his ways, which means that the parameters of your life are defined by the ways of God; love him, which means that the affection of your heart is set on him; serve him, which means that use to which you put your energies and resources, your time your money your imagination, your concentration, your ambition, all of it at the interests of the Lord at their center; and to keep his commandments, which is the matter of straightforward obedience – they all belong together – fear/walk/love/serve/keep, they blend into one another, and merge together and define one another, a bit like our slide. We might be tempted to hold them apart – you can’t both fear someone and love them – and yet, there is something about the Lord that means that both fearing and loving is exactly right, and that to do one without the other would be like playing a major chord with too many minor notes; and likewise, you might be tempted to put love for the Lord and keeping his commandments in pretty separate compartments, as though it were a quite different sort of thing to love God from keeping his commandments. But for Moses, they all belong together, these virtues; they make a perfect harmony, so that to miss one out is to be sadly lacking.
the chapter ends with the same vision, v. 20:
20 You shall fear the Lord your God; him alone you shall worship; to him you shall hold fast, and by his name you shall swear.
an overlapping though different list, but with the same clear direction, now including worship and steadfastness.
hear this, won’t you – what God wants from you is nothing less than the totality of who you are – all your personality, your character, the affection of your heart, the worship of your soul, the loyalty of your love, the ambition of your strength – all of it, nothing more, nothing less. This is the great point of contrast to the religion which speaks to you of all the bits of your life – what you eat and wear and say etc, but not of the integrated you that is at the center of it all. And God wants that, the ‘you’ that is at the center. Just pause a moment, and ask yourself – have I given that to him? Could I run these categories over my life and say, ‘yes, actually, there is more or less a fit. Sure, there are some rough edges from time to time, but yes, I’m his, I’m in boots and all, I’m not looking to hold anything back, I’m not looking to limit the extent of the Lord’s stamp on me.’ If that’s not you, then make sure that you hear that God is speaking to you, he wants to move you to a different place. There’s nothing to stop today being the day when that happens, since it’s about your heart, you can give your heart to him today. That’s exactly what Moses says, v. 16:
6 Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer.
this is a fabulous metaphor – circumcision, the cutting off the foreskin of the penis, was a physical ritual performed on 8 day old baby Jewish boys, as a mark of belonging to God, literally, a mark in their bodies, a very important part of their bodies. But Moses takes the physical ritual and deepens its meaning by urging Israel to circumcise the foreskins, not of the penis, but of the heart, to cut away all that makes for a barrier to God, to entirely sensitise her heart to God, so that she is stubborn no longer.
the problem is that getting a sharp scalpel and attacking a bit of flesh is easy, though not without its pain threshold to overcome; but circumcising one’s heart, there’s no scalpel that will do that, at least not one that we wield. It’s interesting that this theme rumbles its way through the Old Testament, through to the ministry of Jesus, who said with outrageously radical clarity that it is not the things that go into the body – ritually unclean food, or the touching of unclean objects, that make a person unfit for God, but what comes out of a person’s heart, evil intentions and thoughts – they are what offends a holy God. And then the Apostle Paul sums it up in Rom 2.
28 For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. 29 Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart—it is spiritual [lit. of the Spirit] and not literal. Such a person receives praise not from others but from God.
the great New Covenant gift is the gift of God’s own presence with us, in fact not just with us, but in us, in the fiber of our lives, in the DNA of our souls, a work that God does on the interior of our personalities, this is the great pentecostal gift, this is what is new about the new covenant, so that we are responsive and tender and sensitive to him.
it turns out that today is Pentecost Sunday in the church’s calendar, and so it’s beautifully appropriate to pause for a moment on this work of the Spirit. The sign that you heart is circumcised, that you are not as Paul put it elsewhere, quenching the Spirit’s flame, grieving the Spirit, is that you are quick to repent, quick to turn around when you hear the voice of God, to believe what he says about you or your attitude, or some action, and set yourself to keep his commandments. The defining mark of a circumcised heart is that when you hear the convicting voice of the Spirit of God through the word of God – when you’re traveling along in life, and then you’re brought up short with the realisation that some habit you have developed for say pornography or drinking 2 or 3 too many glasses of wine a night, some attitude that has become fixed, a way of criticising other people, a basic prayerlessness, a disinterest in the lostness of those who are not Christian in any straightforward sense, – whatever it is – and then you face a fork in the road. You can go left or right, you can just quietly suppress that voice, put it to one side, rationalise it away as a little bit fanatical, a little bit unrealistic, a little bit unnecessary since we are saved by grace anyway, all the tricks of the evil one to tempt you to harden your heart towards the Lord, and you do nothing. Or there is the other way, the way of the tender, sesnistive heart, the heart that loves God and fears God and keeps his commandments and so hears the rebuke, knows the rightness of it, loves God more than anything else, and so moves immediately to prayer and confession and repentance and change, often including the help of someone else in the process.
• so, how recently has that been you? It’s an important question to ask, because life most sensitivities, the sensitive heart stays supple only with use, it’s only as this hearing the voice of God through the Scriptures and taking decisive action where needed that your heart doesn’t become stubborn. Stubborn requires nothing more than standing still, that is it’s character.
2. Detailed picture
So, for some, you hate to move on from here – you love the big picture, that’s the realm that you operate in best, and to be honest, there are ways in which that also serves to keep at bay annoying things like how it actually works out in practice. For others, they can’t wait to get to the detailed picture, you’re saying to yourself, ‘Let’s move on from all this highty flighty bunch of ideas and hot air, let’s get to something concrete!’ Well it’s here, powerfully here, but it’s here primarily as an illustration of one of the ways the principles will apply. In other words, unlike for my Muslim friend in the debate, the purpose of the detailed picture is not to define the scope of obedience, to close down questions of how to behave, the purpose of the detailed picture is to open up the question, to be evocative, to suggest more and more concrete ways in which a heart for God will express itself.
listen to the issue that Moses picks, v. 17:
17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, 18 who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. 19 You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
do you hear the texture of this – we are to be like something, for the simple reason that this is what God is like, we are instructed to do something, because this is what God has done. In this case, Moses gives a powerful example – to love the stranger. And of course, that has powerful resonance for these recent escapees from Egypt, since they know all about what it’s like to be a stranger, they were strangers in a land that belonged to another, and experienced the xenophobia of being excluded, distrusted, held in suspicion, and marginalised.
this is how Biblical ethics always takes shape – God is like this, God has treated you like this, so you be like this too. And the treatment of enemies, or the those who are far away, is always right at the forefront of that, since that is exactly the kind of love and kindness that God has shown to us. Of course, this has application at every point in our lives, as we interact with people in our street, or people we pass on the way to work, and just extend a neighbourly hand; who’s the new person at work you could reach out to? Wh is the new resident in the street you could take a cake or a bottle of wine over to? We are a city full fo strangers, and if we Christians were more and more adept at loving the stranger, I suspect it would be felt dramatically.
and it is also a significant reality in our own church life. At the very basic level, the fact is that we have had over 2 dozen newcomers at church in the last 3 months. And it says a very great deal about us as to how we go about welcoming them. Here is a concrete discipline – it’s very hard to love the stranger who comes to church if you’re not here, so can I urge you to stay around after the service and take a moment and look for people that seem to be standing on their own and looking a but confused – they’re the new ones, and just take them under your wing. And it’s equally difficult to love the stranger if the only people you ever talk to at church are those you know and like already – they’re not strangers – they may be a little strange, but they’re not strangers, so make a decision not to talk to familiars for the first 10 minutes after church; but we’re hardly at the point of love yet are we, why not seek to make a disciplined habit of once a month inviting some strangers over to your home for lunch after church – include some familiars as well – but just open up your home in hospitality to newcomers, then you’re moving out of the realm of courtesy into something getting closer to love.
but remember, this is a concrete application of a sensitised heart not because it exhausts what it means to live for God, but because it fires the imagination. Don’t limit it at hospitality for those who come to church. Find a dozen different ways to love the stranger, and then another different ways in which the grace of God has been extended to you that you could apply in your relationships to others – there is a glorious creativity to the living this life of complete devotion to the God who has devoted himself to you.
3. The motivation
Which brings us then to the final aspect of what Moses has to say – the motivation. You see it in v. 14:
14 Although heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the Lord your God, the earth with all that is in it, 15 yet the Lord set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today.
Or again, v. 21:
21 He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen. 22 Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy persons; and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in heaven.
who God is and what he has done – who God is in his utter universal majesty; what he has done in his remarkable lowly and specific grace – all that we are called to be is a response to all that God has been and done for us. Here is the basis of fear and love in a way that makes perfect sense; here is the shape of walking in his ways and serving him with every resource at our disposal, since this is the way that he has served us. In belonging to God, we do not belong to an equal, a peer who we can play games with, or even try to leave at the periphery of our lives. We belong to the God who is Lord of heaven and earth, utterly transcendent, who is at the same time the God of the cross, alongside us in a way that we could never hardly imagine and barely hope for.
Conclusion.
• brothers and sisters, what does the Lord require from you – nothing but your heart, soul, mind and strength; nothing but your love, your fear, your obedience and the shape of your life; nothing but your praise and worship and your steadfastness and your utterly undivided loyalty and complete commitment. What does the Lord require of you – all that you are, and there is no better, more gracious, more substantial way to live. What does the Lord require of you – everything.
thank you for a great encouragement to live well – i can actually hear you preaching this in my mind so rest assured that all the intonation and katayisms are not lost in print!
This spoke straight to my sinful heart. Thank you!