Keep Your Soul Diligently

You guard your soul. How do we guard our soul?

The first way that we're given is by submitting it to the word.

Obedience to his revealed will is submitting your heart and

your soul to the word. And so that this passage at the

end of a sermon, it's appropriate and the end of most

messages are Ted talks or sermons or whatever you listen

to. They have what's called a, a

peroration, which is an intense emotional appeal where you're

trying to get people's hearts to do the thing to, to be obedient

to God's will. And we hear these in in Joshua

and in the prophets. And I want to point out Joshua

has one I'll read in a minute a very famous and strong paration.

Where does he get his words? His mentor is Moses.

Remember that he, Moses is dying.

He's handing it over in this very passage to Joshua.

And you say, where does Joshua get words like, As for me and my

house, we will serve the Lord. That's he gets it from right

here. His model is Moses.

This is Moses's peroration, that these words are similar to

Joshua's in 2415 where he says, choose this day whom you will

serve, whether the gods your father served in the region

beyond the river or the gods of the Amorite, and whose land you

dwell. But As for me in my house, we

will serve the Lord. We will serve Yahweh.

And we confess as a church that God rules and reigns in our

hearts and in our lives through an open Bible.

And so he's telling you, open God's Word and study it.

Guard your soul by submitting yourself to the Word.

And when it says something wholeheartedly, do it.

Resolve to do it. And remember, this is what you

signed up for. It will cost you everything to

follow the Lord. Moses says plainly in verse 29,

If you search for God with your whole heart and your whole soul,

you will find Him. If you seek after Him with any

less, you will seek and you will never find.

You seek after God with all of your heart and with all of your

soul. Deuteronomy 439 Know therefore

today lay it on your heart. The Lord God is in heaven, there

is no other. Therefore keep His statutes and

His rules. And as you go into verse 2, he

begins to say this, this is what I'm talking about.

What does it mean? He goes into detail about what

it means to keep the statutes and to guard your hearts.

Verse 2, he says you shall not add to the word that I command

you, nor shall you take from it that you may keep the

commandments of the Lord that I command you.

And he he says in verse 5, there's a hind eye it as he says

the statutes and the rules. It's it's two ideas that are

expressing 1 concept. This is the revealed will of

God. God has made his will known and

you keep it. That's what it means to call him

Lord. Whatever he reveals, we obey.

And so essentially what God is saying is I've said what I've

said, I've said what I said. Don't add to it.

And so put a burden on the people that I never meant to be

there. Set burdens on the people that

they never, I never intended and neither take away from it and

remove my obligations from the people.

That's where we're errors on both sides.

And we're very quick to be like Augustine.

When we see something that we don't like, you know, we might

confess. Yeah, I want to follow the will

of God. I want to be free from my sexual

temptation. And then Augustine said, Lord,

make me chaste, but not yet. We take away the obligations

that we don't see fit. And you know, the, the problem

is not with Israel hearing the word, but Israel doing the word.

And when we come into counseling situations, we've been trained

in our, in our counseling to say, you know what, what's this,

this problem in your life? Is it primarily because of a

problem with hearing the word or is it primarily a problem of, of

doing the word? And that's, that's a very

important question to ask. Is it is your knowledge of God

deficient? Do you need to hear?

Is the problem that you're, you're Bible ignorant?

Or is the problem that you, you've heard it, but you, you

just can't get yourself to do it?

Is it hearing or doing and you come to Israel here.

Truly the problem is hearing the this generation has passed away.

We're making God's word known to the next generation and he's

saying you're going to hear and therefore do it in our

generation, in our context, the issue is not primarily one of of

hearing. We've heard, we know the the

issue is doing. The issue is doing the word.

We have to set our hearts to doing it.

The revelation of God is not deficient.

Your heart is deficient. We have to submit your heart and

your will to the word of God. The Pharisees were were guilty

of violating this verse. They loved to add to God's word.

You know those 633 some some requirements or laws.

That's not enough. My people need to be extra holy

right? They need to go above and beyond

to be more sanctified and God says don't add to my word and

and neither. I think that's actually what

Ecclesiastes is saying when he says don't be overly righteous

right? Don't go beyond what God has

written and in the same way, don't take away because God's

word is supposed to cost you something, right?

Don't make me make me chase the Lord, but not yet.

No, don't take away from his revelation.

If if you, you guard your soul by not adding to God's word, for

that would be legalism. And you guard your soul by not

subtracting from it, for that would be selective obedience.

And this, this concept is so important that if you Fast

forward all the way to the final verses of the Bible, this is how

the Bible ends in Revelation 22. What does he say?

Don't take away anybody who takes away from my Word.

I will take away hit from His inheritance in the tree of life

and anybody who adds to it. I'll add to him the plagues that

are written of in this book. Surely the Lord is coming soon.

Amen. Come Lord Jesus, and that's how

it ends. So you hear the warning and the

severity of it. God has said what He said and

moving on from that, a second way we can guard our soul is by

not being a forgetful hearer. You can look down to verse 9.

Skip down to verse 9 and look with me at this verse.

That's where he says, only take care and keep your soul

diligently, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen,

unless they depart from your heart all the days of your life.

And so he's saying, don't we don't add to God's word.

We don't subtract from God's Word, neither do we forget it.

We have to remember it. And so here's the illustration

you can put in your head to remember it.

Moses carved God's revelation into stone, but that doesn't

connect it to the hearts of the people.

And so they they have the revelation and now they have to

carve the revelation into their own hearts.

They have to meditate on it. They have to read it, they have

to study it. The same could be said for you.

God has written in His Word, His revelation.

Now you have to take that word and write it into your heart.

And that's why every time, if you ever come to me for

discipleship, for counseling, I hope this is true for you and

your relationships. You're not going to leave with

some obligation without some obligation to say here's your

homework. Read these verses, meditate on

these verses, journal these verses, memorize these verses

because we're we're taking it off the page and writing it onto

our hearts so that we can keep them and not forget them.

Another way we could use the language of of Moses.

Here is James 122. How does James say it?

But be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving

yourselves. If you hear it and don't do it,

you're deceived. The one who looks into the

perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer

who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his

doing. Deuteronomy 46 Keep them and do

them. Deuteronomy 49 lest you forget,

this is Moses way of saying, but be doers of the word.

Don't be a forgetful hearer and not hearers only.

Verse 9 continues, only take care and keep your soul

diligently. I want to emphasize that word

diligently. There's there's an effort

required in this, but I also want to emphasize the word only

only the word only is the word rock in Hebrew and it's

restrictive in the sense of meaning.

If you're going to forget everything else, don't forget

this. Don't forget Sinai, don't forget

Horeb, don't forget where you made a covenant with your God.

Don't forget where he was there in the fire and in the smoke and

you were terrified and he revealed himself to you in a in

a mighty way. Don't forget your covenant.

And the great warning to Israel here is the warning of

forgetfulness. Disobedience is letting the

thing slip from your heart. And don't forget that

disobedience is forgetfulness. And so to kind of counter their

forgetful nature, he reminds them in verses 10 to 13 of this

unforgettable experience, How could you forget Mount Sinai?

That's what he's saying. Some of them were were still

alive. They're there.

They've they've heard the stories.

How can you forget this experience with a massive

consuming fire, It says, reaching to the heart of heaven

and lightnings and Thunder. It goes on.

And he says, and death to any man or animal who approached the

mountain. Read with me about this

experience. What do you want you to

remember? Beginning in verse 10?

How could you forget? It says how on the day that you

stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me,

Gather the people, that I may let them hear my words, so that

they may learn to fear me all the days they live on the earth,

and that they may teach their children.

And you came, and you stood at the foot of the mountain, while

the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in

darkness, cloud, and gloom. And the Lord spoke to you out of

the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words,

but he saw no form. There was only a voice.

And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded to

you perform. That is, the 10 commandments.

And he wrote them on 2 tablets of stone.

Some would say, by the way, there's 2 tablets of stone

because there's the first five commandments, our obligations to

God. Second five commandments,

because of our obligations to one another.

Some would say the Ten Commandments, there's 2 copies,

one for God and one for us. But whatever it is, I want you

to remember Moses has the the testimony of that he's carrying

the physical evidence of this was when God spoke, He gave us

this tangible remembrance. And I want you to think back

too, because we are forgetful hearers when God reveals himself

to us. There have been times in your

life where God has revealed himself to you and there are

times when his Providence was unexplainable by any other means

than you saying God reigns. He's been so near to you and

he's been so real to you. And when things go hard and

things get, you know, we, we slip on and we haven't had a

miraculous experience like that or an experience like that in a

while. We forget and we forget those

times. He was so faithful.

And so my command to you too, is, is remember, remember his

faithfulness to you. Remember his Providence when you

knew there was a God in heaven, when he saved you when he was so

tangible and real. And they're carrying that in the

10 commandments that promised to him.

So he's saying, keep your eyes on the goal, lest you become a

forgetful here. Keep your eyes lest you forget.

When I was a barista in three years, one of the few things I

learned during that time at the gathering place was if you're if

you're carrying a cup of coffee and you're looking at the cup of

coffee, you're going to spill it everywhere.

But if you're carrying an over full cup of coffee and you're

looking at where you're going, you will never spill it.

And it's a silly illustration, but it's, it's, it's what he

say. You're keeping your eye on the

goal. You're seeking God and his will

and his righteousness. You're not looking at yourself.

You're focused on him. And when you're focused on him,

it will spare you from all kinds of heartache and consequences of

sin. It doesn't mean life's going to

be easy, but it means you're going to be spared from a lot of

unnecessary sanctification. There's two ways to get to

heaven. I like to say when you get to

the end of Deuteronomy, we'll see this.

There's the easy way you cooperate with the will of God,

or there's the hard way where He has to bring His rod.

I prefer, I would recommend keeping your eyes on Him,

submitting yourself to His will. You'll spare yourself from all

kinds of heartache and disaster. Here's the ask of you, verse

one. Study God's revealed will.

Verse 2. Keep the commandments.

Verse 6. Keep them and do them.

Verse 9. Keep your soul diligently.

Verse 7, we get a new obligation.

It's not just guard your own heart, guard the souls of your

children. Verse 11, not just your soul,

not just your children's soul, the soul of your grandchildren,

your children's children. This obligation is beyond you.

And one of the questions that we've been asking as elders

recently is we see the need for theological education of our

children. It's everywhere in Scripture.

We understand what we're diligently doing this, but what

is our requirement for the theological education of the

children in our community and the people in our community?

That's a much harder, harder question.

And Deuteronomy has has a lot to say about this.

There's a remarkable and repeated emphasis on theological

education to children. And it begins right here in

verse 9. This is the first time he talks

about our children. And you're going to see in a

minute we'll survey the book. And he says over and over and

over, this isn't optional. You have an obligation to your

children and your children's children.

Head of households, listen to this.

This is your responsibility. Mothers, listen to these verses

and Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 6, six to seven, You are to teach

these things diligently to your children.

There's that word again. Deuteronomy 620 to 25.

As your children ask you questions, you were to provide

answers. Deuteronomy 11, you were to

instruct your children as you walk along the road and when you

lie down and when you get up and you were to post the words of

the Bible on the doorposts of your house and on your gates as

you're going, you are to teach them.

Steve Clover, are you in the room?

What's Deuteronomy 2929? The secret things belong to the

Lord. That's right.

We all will know that we love that verse because that's when

we don't understand something. We're like, well, the secret

things belong to the Lord. But what's the second-half of

that verse? But the revealed things belong

to us and to our children forever.

We teach this to our kids. Deuteronomy 3111 The law has to

be read to the people. What does that mean?

It clarifies that he says assemble the men and the women.

We are great at that, and the little ones and the sojourner

within your towns, that all may hear and learn to fear the Lord

your God and be careful to do all the words of the law.

So he says you, when you gather, you get the men and you get the

women and you get the children and you get the vulnerable

people and you all gather and you open up the Word and you

preach it. But it makes this emphasis and

it says that your children who have not known may hear it

actually makes an emphasis here on our kids.

What does it look like to guard the souls of your children?

Just practical things. If you've never thought through

this, if you're new to this, if you don't know how to get

started, you, you could take a podcast, take something like the

Bible Project and listen to it in your car while you're taking

them to school. It's not you're, you're adding

something to your, your routine that you're already doing at the

dinner table while everybody's gathered.

When you pray, just read a few verses out of a gospel and allow

your children to ask questions and and talk about it.

Memorize a verse with your family.

Find a verse that's prophetic for where your family is right

now and memorize it as a family. Sing catechism songs at bedtime

so that they can know Westminster Shorter Catechism

question #39 listen to them as you go to bed and as you pray.

Read a book like Pilgrim's Progress.

Go to the bookstore. It's full of children's books

where there's adventure in action and fun and theology.

These are not optional things. This is not optional.

So I asked fathers, how are you setting the theological

foundation for your children and mothers?

How are you diligently training your children in the faith?

And he goes on. He doesn't just talk to the

parents. Grandparents, how are you doing?

A lot of you will remember they've passed away, which is

tragic, but many of you remember Jack and Gloria Brown.

He used to be in this church and they would right here.

Jack used to kiss my wife on the cheek every week and wink at me

just to get her eyes out of me. Every Sunday I went into their

house and they left an impression on me.

Went to their house one time and they had all the pillows, the

blankets, all the couch cushions off the couch and they were on

the floor re enacting Esther with their grandkids.

That's how it's done. Grandparents.

They're on the floor playing, teaching the Bible to their kids

as they play. It's wonderful.

And I have to confess to you that the first verses that both

of my daughter's memorized were not given by me or Jamie.

The first verse that they ever memorized came from Gigi.

And if you want to know the verse, you can look down to

Deuteronomy 429, the first verse they ever learned, almost

verbatim, the words of Jeremiah 2913.

You will seek the Lord your God and find Him when you search

after Him with all your heart and with all your soul.

So hopefully that stays with them forever.

Thank you, Gigi, for doing that with my kids.

That verse is communicating our whole hearted devotion, sincere

worship, holy, with undivided loyalty.

We guard our hearts with the Word of God.

And remember, if you're not seeking God with all of your

heart and with all of your soul, you'll inevitably become

distracted. You'll become complacent.

You'll become comfortable. And when that happens, this is

where we asked the second question that I want to answer

today. What are we to guard our souls

against? And the answer there is much

simpler. You are guarding your heart

against idols. You're guarding yourself from

idolatry. And it's helpful to remember as

as we begin to ask this question, that your heart is a

garden. Think of Hosea 10/12 Sow

righteousness, reap steadfast love.

Your heart is like a garden. And So what?

What happens to a garden if you neglect it?

You have to be diligent about it or the weeds begin to creep up.

And the longer you let those weeds creep up without taking

away, the, the bigger they get, the more of a nuisance they get.

And I wrote here in my notes that there's more varieties of

idols in our heart than there are varieties of weeds in the

Oklahoma and spring. So remember that as you drive by

an unkempt lawn. And it's true.

One of the most famous quotes in all of history.

And we'll we'll quote it every time we come to a passage like

this on idolatry comes from Calvin where he says our heart

is a factory for idols. There's so many.

They don't always get revealed to us until things get hard, but

we are continually finding things to worship.

You can see it with me, read with me beginning in in verse 3

of Deuteronomy 4. He says your eyes have seen what

the Lord did at bail payor for the Lord your God destroyed from

among you all the men who followed the bail of payor.

Do you remember the story we read out of Numbers 25?

That disgusting story? But you who held fast to the

Lord your God are all alive today.

See, I have taught you statutes and rules as the Lord my God

commanded me, that you should do them in the land you're entering

and to take possession of it. So he he's drawing this

juxtaposition between true worship and life and false

worship and death. And the the contrast is, is

painted graphically because Moses is recalling what happened

again a few weeks ago at Baal Payor where the Israelites

engaged in sensual Pagan Canaanite rites.

Were they engaged in sexual activity with Moabite women?

And we say, how dense of a generation was that?

How dense is our generation? How dense was that generation?

When they're on the brink of the promised land, they've almost

served out the generation the 40 years.

And in the weeks before they go, they go and they look to bail

for his blessings and his protection and his benefits.

And Numbers 25 recorded that God sent a plague on the idolaters

and 24,000 Israelites died. It's a horrible story.

What did Paul just teach us in Ephesians 5 except sexual

immorality and all impurity and covetousness must not even be

named among you as is proper. And you see that here.

Disobedience to the law brings destruction and death.

His application is choose life that you might be blessed.

Hold fast to the covenant, be loyal and faithful to the

covenant because he says all those who are faithful to the

covenant are still alive and they are alive even to that day.

Jesus again, Matthew 1917, if you would enter life, keep the

commandments. This is why Moses says in verse

6, the essence of wisdom. If you want to live

successfully, if you want to live well, if you want to be

blessed, the essence of wisdom is living according to God's

will. Because if you don't guard your

heart against idols, we think we know.

I've gotten sanctified to the point that I could never fall

into some kind of horrible idolatry or some kind of

horrible sin. And we say, yes, absolutely you

can. If you do not guard your heart,

we are not exempt from the most terrible kinds of sin.

We have to be diligent. We have to guard our souls.

We have to protect ourselves with the word.

Only take care and keep your soul diligently.

The human heart's a factory for idols, which is why John ends

his first epistle. How does first John end little

children keep yourselves from idols, End of book, right.

Little children keep yourselves from idols.

And so in, in, in moments of comfort, you know, we believe

that our souls are free of idols.

And then hardship and trials come and then idolatry becomes

more tempting. Something, some terrible trying

thing comes on us like infertility.

And all of a sudden then all of the quasi magical practices of

the pagans don't seem so far fetched, right?

Then superstitions don't seem far fetched because we're

desperate and we want this so bad that we'll begin to seek it

however we can seek it. We can make an idol out of

anything. We make idols out of comfort

saying, Lord, I'll do anything for you so long as I remain

comfortable. Or we make an idol out of

safety, Lord, I'll do anything for you so long as it will keep

me safe. When comfort and safety aren't

bad things, but they're not priorities.

And we hear it in our prayers. When people go out to the

mission field and we forget and we neglect to pray that they

push back darkness and the gospel would go forward and we

instead pray, Lord keep them safe, which is a great prayer.

It's not the priority or money. How quickly we forget God when

he gives us a measure of wealth and we think that money is a

gift and not a stewardship. Moses is going to teach us this

in chapter 8. Beware lest you say in your

heart my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this

wealth. You shall remember the Lord your

God, for it is he who gives you the power to gain wealth.

Your money comes from God, power, success.

I'll mention one more fame. Who doesn't want to be somebody?

We don't want to be like Paul says in Thessalonians where we

work quietly in obscurity and we work diligently with our hands

to make our living. You know, we want to be

somebody. We want people to know who we

are. You go to to George Mueller, who

was kind of forced to a hand to mouth existence as he was caring

for all these orphans. And people would come to him and

they would tempt him and they'd say, we will give you all the

money you'll ever need if you would just put our name on the

on the front of your building. And we need to remember this

principle because he said to everyone who who asked this God

is the only patron of these orphans, right?

I'm not putting your name on this building and where your

name is going to be associated with these orphans.

God's name alone is going to be associated with these children.

And so the same is true here. This will be my response if you

ever come and say I'll do whatever you want as long as

you'll put my name over the new building or over the Sunday

school class. And I'll say God's the only

patron of this church. God's the only patron of our

children. You don't need fame.

You don't need your name attached to the good thing that

you do. What if you do something that's

great for the Kingdom of God, but it condemns you to

obscurity? That would be OK, and that would

be good for your soul. Remember all of these idols that

we're so tempted toward as we read Deuteronomy 1012 to 13.

What does the Lord your God require of you summing up the

whole book? To fear the Lord your God, to

walk in His ways, to love Him, to serve him with all your heart

and with all your soul and to keep the commandments and

students of the Lord which I'm commanding you today for your

good. These and not idols are our

focus. It's it's the job of the

leaders. I, I lean on you leaders to keep

these things in the eyes of the people and to be bold according

to these and ask of or would be idols instead of idolizing

comfort, say what can I do on behalf of the Lord which might

make me and my family uncomfortable or asking of

safety and the idol of safety. What might I do for the Lord to

expand his Kingdom where I'm going to have to lean on him for

his protection or idolizing fame?

What can I do to make his name great, which might make my name

nothing? And so against all the so-called

gods of the ancient world, against the all the the gods of

this world, all these gods are tangible that he's talking to

them. The the idols made of wood.

God says, when I spoke to you it I was not a piece of wood.

I was not I spoke to you and there was no form.

It was light which casts no shadow, He says in verse 15, You

can read it with me. Watch yourselves carefully.

Why, since you saw no form on the day the Lord spoke to you

out of the midst of the fire. God is a consuming fire, it

says. He is immaterial.

He is spirit. We worship Him in spirit and in

truth. There's nothing that a little

piece of wood or a piece of gold or a piece of plastic or a piece

of silver can do. He says, I had no form.

He does not share His glory with another Scripture says God says

there's 10,000 things that are going to distract you and

compete for his attention and his glory.

Don't forget God and inevitably sink into the worship of idols.

Keep the main thing, the main thing to say.

What is the main thing brings us to the final question we're

going to ask. Why do we guard our hearts?

Why do we guard our hearts? He answers for the sake of our

mission. What's the goal of the church?

What's the goal of the people of God?

Was it always been Isaiah 11/9? That the knowledge of the Lord

shall fill the earth as waters cover the sea?

That's the mission. Habakkuk 214 For the for the

earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the

Lord. As the waters cover the sea.

We make the will of God known, His goodness and his greatness

to all creations, so that all might bow the knee to him and

fulfill his will. That's worth putting down your

fame, right? That's worth your money, that's

worth your power and your comfort and your safety.

That's worthy of your undivided loyalty.

The the knowledge of God might be known.

And, and how do we do it? Remember the great themes of

Deuteronomy. How do we make the will of God

known as the water covers the sea?

He says it's theological education, the Bible and

theology known to our children and our children's children.

And we live it out and we teach it.

And it's caring for the vulnerable so that we just, we

say not only the words of God, but we display the ethics of God

so that when people see us, we invite their comparison.

As you'll soon see, we, we invite comparison.

And when they compare, their righteousness and their justice

fall short. And they want what we have

because ours is divine and revealed.

Theological education, caring for the vulnerable and advancing

the gospel. That's what you were made to do.

That's what you were born to do. Keep your eyes on that

Deuteronomy 46. You can read with me in the

context of this mission. Keep them and do them for that

will be your wisdom and your understanding.

Here it is in the sight of all the people when they hear all

these statutes, they'll say, surely this is a great nation

and a wise and understanding people.

The rabbi's would say of a verse one that it means study.

We're, we're studying and writing this law on our heart

and then we keep it and then we do it and we live out our faith.

Deuteronomy 28 says the same thing as verse 6.

If you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in

his ways, all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are

called by the name of the Lord. So Daniel Block says fans

advertise their favorite sports teams by wearing hats and shirts

and scarves and key chains and bumper stickers.

And they do all of this to advertise their name.

And he says, but the people of God advertise their God not with

Christian evangelistic T-shirts or crosses or Hebrew tattoos,

but with righteousness and obedience to the law of God.

That's how you advertise the Lord right says the Old

Testament law explicitly invites and even welcomes public

inspection and comparison that Israel's law would be found

superior and to in wisdom and injustice.

We're going to look at this more deeply next week but you could

say our society, the Western society is built on the

foundation of God's law summarily comprehended in the 10

commandments and so where does the where does the world want to

live Do they want to live in the West where we we practice that

your punishment must fit the crime and where everybody is

equal dignity and worth because we're all made in the image of

God. Do you want to live in a society

like that, or do you want to go live in a Muslim society or in

India in their caste system? You make a comparison, it

invites a comparison. What's better, what's more

righteous, what's more just? Meryl says these statutes would

do more than merely provide guidelines for successful life

in the land. By obeying them, God's people

would also display before the nation's what it means to be the

people of the Lord and have him in their midst.

The wisdom of God has to be seen in your life, not only in us as

a church, you as an individual, or I guess even us as a nation

as we embody these things, but you.

And as an individual, you are inviting inspection and

comparison. And people need to look at your

marriage and say that's better than mine.

What do you have that I don't? And the opposite is also true.

Paul says, because if they look at your life and they see your

angry response to stimuli and they see your greed and your

idolatry, and they're going to say, I want nothing to do with

God. Paul says they're going to say

the name of God is going to be blasphemed among the Gentiles

and it's going to be because of you.

We're inviting as a people inspection in comparison.

So we want to say, I want nothing to do no, I want nothing

more than to do the will of God. That's that's what's at stake.

The world's watching. One more point I want to make is

that we see in the the 10 commandments, we'll look at this

next week that there are certain rights and obligations that

Yahweh has as our creator and our Redeemer.

One of them is the right to proper representation.

God has an innate right to proper representation.

Israel bears His name. You are a Christian and you bear

God's name. He has a right to you

representing Him well. He has given you His glory.

Christian is from the word Christianos in Greece, which

Greek which literally means follower of Christ.

If you take His name, you reveal His glory.

Take His commandments, keep His commandments.

Do not forget them. Verse 39 No.

Therefore today lay it on your heart.

The Lord God is in heaven, there is no other.

Therefore keep His commandments and His statutes.

So you don't have to be a Bible scholar to understand what this

passage means. This is so simple the children

can understand it. Listen to verse one, he says

study the statutes and the rules that I'm teaching you.

Verse 2, keep the commandments of the Lord your God.

I'm commanding you. Verse five, I've taught you

statutes enrolled so that you should do them in the land that

you are entering. Verse 6, keep them and do them,

for that will be your wisdom. Verse 9, take care and keep your

soul diligently. Verse 14, that you might do them

in the land that you're going to possess, and you go all the way

down to verse 40. He ends this whole section.

He ends his sermon with this great command.

Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments,

which I command you today, that it may go well with you and your

children after you, that you may prolong your days in the land

that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.

I end with this last thought because the author of Hebrews in

chapter 12, verses 28 to 29, he's meditating on this exact

passage, these very verses. This is where it says the Lord

God is a consuming fire. He's jealous, not in a petty

sense, but in that it's his right that he received glory

from us. And as the author of Hebrews is

meditating on this, he gives us one final application as he

records these words. Therefore, let us be grateful.

Let us be grateful for receiving a Kingdom that cannot be shaken.

And let us offer to God acceptable worship with

reverence and with awe. For our God is a consuming fire.

Please pray with me. Lord, we, we don't even know

what this means that you're jealous.

Now. We're jealous for so many

things. Lord, may we be jealous and

zealous for your glory. And Lord, we know it's not

written in this passage. It's not the emphasis.

We, we remember that there is so much grace when we fall short.

But Lord, may we live according to this.

You've made it so clear in your revelation.

We want to, we've heard it, we want to do it.

You've said keep the commands, study them, take them off of the

page and write it on our hearts. Lord, we know that this is only

something we can do by your Spirit.

Give us resolve, give us determination.

Give us the willpower to do this, to not just hear the

words, but to to write it on our heart.

Not only our hearts, our children's hearts.

Not only that, but that we would take responsibility for our

children's children that your name might be made great on the

earth. God, we love you.

We thank you that you've spoken. The ears of your servants are

listening. Lord in Christ's name, Amen.

Thanks for listening. To learn more about Heritage

Church or if you'd like to respond to this sermon, visit

our website at www.heritage Shawnee dot.

Org.