Deuteronomy 10 | Thomas Todd

Hello everyone.

This is Pastor Benjamin.

You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, Orlando.

At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer.

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Please stand for our prayer of illumination and scripture reading.

Give us understanding that we may keep your law and observe it with our whole hearts.

Lead us in the path of your commandments, for we delight in it.

Turn our eyes from looking at worthless things, and give us life in your ways through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Now please remain standing for the reading of Scripture.

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 am 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 God of gods and 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, for you were 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 seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.

This is God's word.

You may be seated.

Good morning.

So I wonder, have you ever been driving somewhere?

You've driven probably a hundred times, maybe uh driving home from work, and you you're going about, uh, you start pulling into the driveway and you realize, wait a minute, for the last 20 minutes, my brain was somewhere totally different.

I have no clue how I just got into the driveway.

Right?

You knew the route, you knew where you were going.

You could probably explain to somebody, hey, this is where you turn here, this is where you go there, but you weren't consciously thinking about every turn.

You know, that's one of the strangest things about I think being human is we can know one thing and we can repeatedly do another.

Right?

We can we can uh not it's not just true with driving, but we can know that we should be patient, and then someone pushes the exact buttons that they have pushed a thousand times.

Parents?

Right?

Yeah, that happens.

You knew exactly what patience looked like five seconds before you lost yours.

Or we know we should pray and we reach for our phone, or we know we should forgive, but we rehearse the offense again and again and again.

We know God is enough, but then we'll spend the day trying to prove, hey, we are enough.

We know exactly what scripture says about generosity, about purity, about humility, about anger, anxiety, marriage, or even parenting.

But we all know more than we actually live out.

Right?

The Bible has a word for that.

Stubbornness.

And here's the question: why?

Why is it that I can know what is right and still want what is wrong?

Why can I know what God says and still resist what God says?

Why can I know that something is destroying me yet I still reach for it?

Maybe our greatest problem isn't that we don't know enough.

Maybe the problem is that knowing hasn't changed what we love.

Because our hearts have learned a different route, a different pathway.

And when life gets hard, when we're tired or when we're anxious, when we're angry, we're rejected, or we feel disappointed, we don't always travel the route that we know in our heads.

We travel the route that we have learned in our hearts.

You know, our fallen hearts stubbornly resist God because we don't merely struggle to know what is right, but we struggle to love what is right.

Todd Hall puts it this way in his book called The Connected Life.

Patterns of interactions with our attachment figures get stored in our memories as gut-level expectations of how close relationships work.

Those expectations can shape even the way that we experience God.

This is one of the reasons that the entire book of Deuteronomy is so concerned with our heart, or in Hall's language, with our gut, you know, with all of who we are.

Because the problem isn't simply that Israel doesn't know what God wants.

You know, they've they've heard it, they've been taught it, they've watched God demonstrate his faithfulness again and again and again.

The problem is deeper than information, the problem is the heart.

And that's why Moses says in verse 16, circumcise, therefore, the foreskin of your heart.

See, we don't need God just to tell us which road to take.

We need God to change the heart that keeps taking us down the wrong road.

And that's what we're gonna see in this passage here this morning.

God doesn't just want to change what we know, He wants to change what you and I love.

We're gonna see that in three movements this morning.

First, God's heart towards us.

Second, we'll see that our hearts towards God, and third, and finally, God's heart through us.

So if you have your Bibles or your device, turn with me to Deuteronomy 10 and let's look at this first movement: God's heart towards us, verses 12 through 15.

In verse 12, Moses starts out, and now Israel.

And these words matter because Moses has just spent chapter 9 and the beginning of chapter 10 reminding Israel of their rebellion and their stubbornness.

The golden calf, God's judgment, Moses' intercession, God's covenant mercy.

And now, in light of all that God has done, Moses says to them, Hey, what does the Lord your God require of you?

And Moses gives them five very strong verbs fear, walk, love, serve, and keep.

Fear the Lord your God, walk in his ways, love him, serve him with all your heart and your soul, and keep his commandments.

In other words, God wants the whole person.

He wants our worship, he wants our desires, he wants our daily walk, he wants our work, he wants our obedience.

God isn't asking for part of our life, but he's asking for our whole life.

And then in verse 13, he lands on, hey, here's the reason.

It is for your good.

See, God's commands aren't these arbitrary restrictions designed to keep us from the good life.

Right?

They are the wisdom of a very good and loving Father directing his people towards real life and flourishing.

But notice what Moses does next.

He lifts their eyes in verse 14.

Look at verse 14.

Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heavens of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.

Everything belongs to the Lord.

Right?

Heaven belongs to God, earth belongs to him, everything belongs to him.

He doesn't need Israel.

And then notice verse 15.

He he brings out to me one of the most astonishing words.

Yet, in light of all that, God owns it all, yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them.

The God who owns everything set his heart upon Israel.

He wasn't compelled to choose them.

They didn't earn it.

They weren't impressive enough to deserve it.

The God who didn't need Israel chose Israel.

God's love came first.

And that really changes everything that God is asking of Israel in verse 12.

Parents, have you ever heard your kids say, maybe in some form or fashion, hey, hey, watch this.

My kids will often to me, hey dad, watch this.

And usually I'll probably look over to my wife and say, hey, one of two things are about to happen.

One, we may have to go to the emergency room, so let's be ready.

My house, this is often, we were just there this week.

Two, uh, my kids are asking something underneath, hey dad, watch this.

It's often another question.

Dad, hey, are you are you proud of me?

Hey, dad, did you see that?

Am I enough?

Do you love me?

Do I have what it takes, Dad?

Now imagine if the father gets down on his knees and he says to his child, hey, you don't you don't have to accomplish anything to make you my child.

I love you.

I I delight in you.

And imagine if, just saying those words, that that it would deep go deep into the heart of that child.

That they they say, Hey, wait a minute, whoa, like my father delights in me.

He he loves me completely.

Something will begin to change in him.

He'll no longer have to perform for love, but he'll actually do things out of love.

And I would argue he probably wouldn't stop doing wild and fun things where we end up in the ER.

He might even do more of those things, but it's from a very different perspective.

It's the difference between legalism and obedience.

So the first question this morning probably isn't, hey, how well am I obeying God?

Perhaps the first question this morning we should ask ourselves, do I actually believe that God has set his heart upon me in Christ?

Because if you don't know you're loved, everything becomes performance.

Right?

Prayer becomes performance, Bible reading will become performance, holiness will become performance, church attendance becomes performance.

And performance eventually produces one of two things: either pride, hey, look at how well I'm doing, or despair, I'll never be good enough.

But the gospel says, hey, you are loved in Christ.

Now live from that love.

You are delighted in, like God delights in you because of Christ.

And so now live from that place of delight.

Christian growth does not begin with try harder.

It begins with learning to live from the love of a loving Father.

Grace doesn't eliminate obedience.

Remember, grace transforms our obedience.

So first, receive the love of God.

And then Moses moves from God's heart towards Israel to Israel's heart towards God.

So our hearts towards God.

Look at verse 16.

And this is kind of the central theme of the whole passage.

Circumcise, therefore, the foreskin of your heart.

This is a pretty shocking command in the passage, right?

Israel carried the sign of the covenant.

They had been circumcised on their bodies, but Moses says, hey, listen, the sign that God ultimately wants is on your heart.

And notice what happens.

Moses connects this with, and he says, and be no longer stubborn.

See, the problem isn't that Israel doesn't know enough.

They've heard God's word, they've seen his faithfulness, they've even experienced his mercy.

The problem is they resist the God that they already know.

Information matters, but information cannot transform the heart.

And that's true for us.

Our hearts don't just choose randomly.

We tend to reach for whatever we believe will give us what we most want.

We want control more than trust, approval more than faithfulness, comfort more than obedience, security more than God, recognition more than service.

At the root of sin is a heart that gives God's place to something else.

And that's why simply telling someone, hey, just stop it.

It doesn't transform them.

Right?

Have you ever tried that with a two-year-old in the aisle at Walmart when you're trying to check out, like just stop it?

It tends to not work real well.

Because the heart says, But I want it.

You know, I I want that.

And that's the deeper problem.

Then notice in verse 17, one of the most beautiful parts of the passage here, 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.

The God who is infinitely greater than everything else cannot be manipulated.

You can't negotiate with him, you can't impress him, you can't perform your way into his favor.

God sees the heart.

Remember our drive from earlier.

We we know the destination, we know the road.

Our hands simply just followed the road, and our mind was totally somewhere else.

And spiritually, that that can tend to happen for us.

Someone criticizes us and we can tend to take the road of defensiveness.

Someone maybe disappoints us and we take the road of resentment.

Someone, we start to feel insecure and we take the road of control.

We feel insignificant and we take the road of achievement.

We feel lonely and we take the road of escape.

We get afraid and we take the road of anxiety.

Our hearts have learned these different pathways, these different routes.

And Moses says, hey, don't memorize another route.

He says, hey, circumcise your heart.

But here's the theological problem, then.

Can Israel actually do this?

Like, can you, can I, can we circumcise our own heart?

This is where I believe Deuteronomy itself gives us the answer.

Later in chapter 30, verse 6, listen to these words.

And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

Now listen, that's a massive redemptive historical development.

Right?

Do you see what happens?

Verse in chapter 10, we get the command.

In chapter 30, we are given the promise.

The command reveals the need, but the promise reveals the solution.

What God commands here, he promises later to accomplish.

Israel, now hear this: Israel can circumcise their hearts because God has promised He will do it.

Like slow down for a minute in that.

Israel can do it because God has promised He will do it.

And that's what the gospel gives us.

Christ doesn't merely give us more information about how to live.

Through Christ, through our union with Christ, God gives us his spirit and transforms us from the inside out so that we can actually walk out the things of Christ.

This is why discipleship cannot be just information transfer.

We need more people, we need people more than people to know what Jesus taught.

We need more than to know what Jesus taught.

We need people whose hearts increasingly become transformed to love what Jesus loves.

Hear that.

Through the power of the Spirit, you can love what Jesus loves.

Moses is saying, hey Israel, you can do this because God has promised He will do it.

And then he reminds Israel in verse 20, he says, What God has uh about what God has already done.

He says, You shall fear the Lord your God, you shall serve him and hold fast to him.

Why?

Because he is your praise, he is your God, he has done great things for you.

The God who brought 70 people down to Egypt multiplied them like the stars of heaven.

In other words, the God who has been faithful to you can be trusted with your heart.

So don't merely give God your behavior, but give God your heart.

And I don't want you to miss there in verse 20 uh the beautiful picture of, and hold fast to him.

This is what one does when they give their whole heart.

Our youngest uh Benjamin, he's he's one and a half-ish.

Somebody does the months still.

I just once we hit one, we're one.

Uh he loves his mom like more than every anybody on the planet.

He loves mom.

Uh and mom's always wanted one that loved her the most, and this one does very much.

So, and the minute she tries to put him down, like literally, that boy will cling to her like he's hanging on with toes, like he's trying to wrap his legs around her, he is holding on, clinging as much as he can.

And there is no doubt that he loves mom.

Like, like there's zero doubt.

And that's a picture of a heart that holds fast, clinging to a father.

And listen, we can do that because God says he will do that, he will hold fast, right?

And if God changes our heart, then the question that we should ask is what's a new heart look like?

We begin to love what God loves.

God's heart through us.

So, what does a circumcised heart look like?

Moses doesn't say, hey, you'll become more religious.

He says, you'll begin to love what God loves.

Look at verse 18.

He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, gives him food and clothing.

Now, this is remarkable with the verses around this.

Moses has just described God as the God of gods, the Lord of lords, the great and mighty, the awesome God who cannot be manipulated.

Now he says, this great transcendent God, this great and magnificent God, he cares for the fatherless, the widow, and the sojourner.

God's greatness doesn't make him distant from people in need.

His greatness is part of what makes his compassion so remarkable.

He is high above us, yet he bends down to care for those who are the most vulnerable.

Then in verse 19, he says, Hey, therefore, love the sojourner, therefore, you, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

And do you see the movement?

God has set his heart upon Israel.

God loves the sojourner, God cares about people who are vulnerable and dependent and without the normal protections of family and status.

Now Israel is to love the same.

God loves us.

We love God.

And then we love what God loves.

See, that's what a changed heart does.

Think about it this way: a family.

Children can pick up things from their parents without realizing it, right?

I mean, parents in the room, you probably sometimes say some things and your kids repeat phases, and you're like, oh, uh, I wonder where they got that.

Or when you're frustrated and you can react this way, and then you watch your two-year-old do the very thing that you do, and you're like, oh, I wonder where she got that.

And you realize, wait a minute, that that comes from me.

That's a family resemblance, right?

And the same thing is true spiritually.

God creates family resemblance.

Grace creates family resemblance.

God loves you, so so we love.

God has welcomed you, so we welcome.

God has shown us mercy, so we show mercy.

God has forgiven us, so we forgive.

God has care for us when we are helpless, so we learn to care for those who are hurting and who are vulnerable.

And notice what Moses says, Israel's supposed to remember, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

In other words, don't forget who you were.

You were dependent.

You were vulnerable.

You needed someone to rescue you.

You received grace that you could not provide yourself.

Now extend the grace that you have received.

This is actually a beautiful picture of discipleship.

The goal isn't merely that we know more about Jesus, the goal is that over time the character of Jesus increasingly becomes recognizable in us.

You know, many people can know the Bible and still be harsh.

You can know theology and be self-centered.

You can know the gospel and still refuse to forgive.

But when the gospel gets a hold of the heart, it begins to show up in the life.

And a changed heart by God begins to love what God loves.

So Moses gives us this beautiful movement in the passage: God's heart towards us, our heart towards God, and God's heart through us.

Loved by God, loving God, loving what God loves.

So where does that leave us this morning?

We've heard the things that God requires: fear him, walk in his ways, love him, serve him, keep the commands, circumcise your heart.

And then we look at our own hearts and we realize wait a minute, I can't do this on my own.

Right?

That's the point.

Deuteronomy 10 gives us the command, but later, again, Deuteronomy 30, God gives us the promise.

The Lord your God will circumcise your heart.

The heart God commands us to give is the heart only God can give us.

And that really leads us real quickly to Jesus.

You know, Jesus is the whole-hearted Israelite who could never who Israel could never be.

He perfectly feared God.

He walked in his ways.

He loved the Father.

He served others.

He obeyed completely and loved what God loves.

And Jesus didn't just say, hey, here, let me give you an example of wholehearted love.

But he gives us what our stubborn hearts cannot produce.

He gave himself for our stubborn hearts.

He died for our rebellion and rose again to give us new life.

And through his spirit, God begins to the work of changing us from the inside out.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3, one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture, the Lord is Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

Notice the movement there.

We behold Christ, and Christ transforms us.

Again, that's not just simply knowing more.

That's not simply trying harder, but learning to behold Christ, learning to receive his grace, learning to walk by his spirit, increasingly, we increasingly become like the one who is doing the work that we're beholding.

That's why what you believe about God matters.

If I believe I have to earn God's love, I live and work really hard for his approval.

But if I believe that God has already set his heart upon me in Christ, I can live from his approval rather than for his approval.

And when grace gets a hold of the heart, it begins to then change the life.

And so again, we we see that movement that as we realize how much we are loved by God, then it's just natural for us to love God and then to begin to love what God loves.

That's what the gospel does.

Jesus doesn't just say, here's a new road to follow.

He says, here, let me give you a new heart.

And then by his spirit, he teaches you a new way to walk in his spirit.

And so as we behold, as we look to, as we see his glory, then our lives are transformed into that same glory one degree at a time.

So the question to think about this morning, the question I would encourage you to think about is what am I believing about God right now?

And how is that belief shaping the way that I am living?

What do I believe about God?

And how is that belief shaping the way that I'm living this morning?

Pray with me.

Father, we come before you humbled by your love.

You are the God of gods, the Lord of Lords.

You have set your heart upon your people in Christ.

You have loved us.

You have pursued us.

You have welcomed us.

Not because we've earned it, but because of your grace.

So, Father, this morning, circumcise our hearts.

Lord, cut away our pride, our stubbornness.

Lord, take away the loves that compete with you.

Give us hearts that not only know your word, but delight in you.

Holy Spirit, as we behold Christ, transform us into his image.

Let what we believe about your grace change the way that we live.

Teach us to fear you, to walk in your ways, to love you, to serve you, to hold fast to you.

And because we have received your love, Lord, make us into people who reflect your love to others, especially those who are hurting, those who are vulnerable, those who feel like outsiders.

Lord, help us to live from the love that you have already given us.

Help us to love you with our whole hearts.

Help us to love what you love.

Lord, may the heart of Jesus become more and more recognizable in me.

And may our lives become a living testimony of your grace.

We ask this in the name of Jesus, who loved us and gave himself for us.

Amen.