Mobilizing in Moab: Cut to the Heart

Notes:

Title: “What YHWH wants”

What are all the things he wants from us?

Fear, walk, love, serve, keep.

BEHOLD

CIRCUMCISE

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

Fear, serve, hold fast, swear.

What has the Lord done?

Review: vv.12-15

Love and keep commandments

Because God loved and chose you above all peoples.

v. 16: Circumcise your hearts and be no longer stubborn.

Why?

v. 17: God is God and executes justice v. 18: God loves the sojourner

v. 19: So LOVE the sojourner because you were sojourners.

v. 20: Fear the Lord your God.

v. 21: He is your Praise. He is your God.

Arnold: This passage “is a dense summary of all that YHWH desires from Israel, and serves as a climactic digest of the sermonic exhortations in the previous chapters.”

Arnold and Levenson: “The covenant relationship between YHWH and Israel summarized in Deut 10:12-22 may be defines as ‘a towfold love, the mysterious love of YHWH for Israel and the less baffling love of Israel for YHWH, her benefactor… The paragraph brings together in positive expressions the message of the First and Second Commandments (5:7-10) with the Shema (6:4-5), and even suggests that Isreal’s rebellious nature can be altered (10:16).”

Passage begins with a question then answer.

Summary of Theology of Deut in vv.12-13.

Theology is “buttressed by two assertions. The first emphasizes who Israel is, focusing again on election (vv.14-16), and the second focuses on who YHWH is as a God infinitely worthy of Israel’s praise and adoration (vv.17-22). Arnold

WHAT THEY MUST DO

12-13: Question/Answer

What does the Lord request/desire/claim/demand?

“Contractual aspect of the covenant relationship; YHWH has done everything for Israel and now outlines their obligations in return.” Arnold

Fear YHWH: “Fear-love bond is central to Deuteronomy’s Torah ethics.”

Arnold: “Deuteronomy’s command to fear Yhwh is many things, but it cannot be interpreted simply as an unemotional “reverence” or even “obedience,” and it cannot be understood apart from the command to love God. The two complement each other in a new covenant ethic in Deuteronomy, so that love prevents terror and fear prevents irreverent familiarity.”

2. Walk in YHWH’s Ways: “Living faithfully,” to the law.

3. Love: Arnold: “Yet the term in Deuteronomy retains its emotional connotations as primary, and its call to love Yhwh denotes more than natural affections, such as covenant loyalty, but certainly not less than affection.”

4. Serve: “with all your heart and with all your soul.” Arnold. Religious serving. “Worship generally or a specific cultic (priestly) service.” Arnold

5. Keep: “Whole legal agenda.” Arnold

14-16:

They are to submit because of WHO THEY ARE

ASAITY of God: necessity of God.

All the universe belongs to God.

God’s THUSNESS

Kyper Quote

Yet, God “set his heart in love.”

Limited Atonement

Unconditional Election

LOVED AND CHOSEN

v.16: “Figurative and spiritual.” Arnold

Life from the Neck and the Heart

Life of change: Cut heart, not stiff neck

v. 17: God of gods and Lord of lords

Not partial: “Does not lift faces”

Societal justice flows out from God

“love of immigrant” Such a contrast between the issues we dealt with a couple of weeks ago with the command to devote the 7 nations to total destruction.

Only command where God is not the object of Israel’s Love.

Significant!

Why? Because they were foreigners.

Significant: “that YHWH would enjoin Israel to love someone outside himself.” Awadby

“The God who loved and redeemed Israel desires Israel to become lovers and redeemers themselves.” Arnold

Cut to the Heart:

Introduction:

Global God, Local Love

Part 1: Global God

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

To the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.

Not a localized deity

Global God!

Global Rule

Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it…

Grew up: Pastor would say:

Psalm 124:8 “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

2003: First Reformed Church of Cary

Higher Church Liturgy: Votum

Votum=Vow Liturgy taught me something

Who made everything: Our Great Global, no, Cosmic God.

But God’s grace wasn’t globalized, it’s localized/it’s personalized:

15 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.

Who did what?

Who loved and chose…

Emphasis on God’s direction:

“Set his heart in love…”

“Set his Heart”

1. Literal: “Set his strong affection on your ancestors”

2. Personal: “Yet, to your ancestors, the Lord desired strongly towards love AND chose their offspring, you!”

Your personal election was based on God’s affection… And it’s a personal choosing: FOR YOU GUYS!

Deuteronomy theme: God’s love motivates God’s choosing.

- Our God is a Global God with localized love

Last time I preached:

Limited Atonement: God chose local/personal.

His choosing isn’t arbitrary. It’s relational.

The order is instructive here:

God loved, then chose.

His choosing isn’t route or cold. It’s affectionate, directional, and purposeful.

He LOVED, then chose…

Eph 1:4-5: In love he predestined us

For us, it’s the opposite:

We’re chosen by God, then we love God

We can’t love without being chosen

Picture of teacher correcting bubbles

Picture of adoption

Motived out of Love, I cut you out from the rest of humanity.

Local Love Leads to Clear-Cut Lives

v. 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.

When you see a therefore, you have to see what it’s there for…

God’s Love and choosing does something to us.

Circumcise Your Heart: Heart really is in the text

God’s cutting off a people requires the cutting off of the heart

One of the most instructive verses in Deuteronomy:

“Circumcise the foreskin of your heart and be no longer stubborn.”

Total dedication, consecration, devotion.

The bloody mess of circumcision required a clear-cut.

Because God has cut off his people, we are called to live cut off lives…

Unfortunate translation in the ESV:

“And be no longer stubborn”

Lit: Be no longer stiff necked.

OR: Circumcise the foreskin of your heart, “and as for your neck, no longer make it stiff”

Anatomy here: Have a Clear Cut Heart not a Stiff-Necked Head.

First time we come across the term ‘stiff necked’: God calls Israel stiff-necked when they make the Golden Calf.

Throughout Exodus refers to stiff neck 3n other times, each time in reference to the Gold Calf.

If you have your Bibles, you’ll notice that it comes in right after the story of the Golden Calf.

A stiff necked people are an idol making people:

People who want to worship their way…

Stiff necked people decide who and how to worship.

Clear Cut Heart:

Total devotion to YHWH

Live as holy. Live as set apart by God. Live as God’s loved elect.

Stiff Necked Head:

Total Devotion to YHWH OR Totally distracted away from YHWH

Grow an Election Ego:

We’re saved from Egypt, we’re chosen by God, let’s worship the way we want.

Problem: Election Entitlement

Stiff necked life= “Chosen without change.”

Desire to set your own direction and your own worship.

Chosen without transformation.

Chosen without looking out for others.

See things your way.

The rest of our passage shows us how to live a Clear Cut Life:

Begins with Clear-Cut Confession

Clear-Cut Confessions

To live the clear-cut life FOR God invites us to clear-cut confessions about God.

Teased apart verses 17-22, because they are complex. Confession interwoven with conduct

17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God…

vv.21-22: He is your praise. He is your God…

Exclusive God demands Exclusive Worship

Again, this passage comes after the story of the Gold Calf… Shapes the theology of this passage:

The Lord YOUR God is God of gods and Lord of lords.

He’s it. There’s no other.

We go back to how great our God is!

Back to the beginning: Such a great God that the whole heavens of heavens and all the earth belong to Him.

But wait, there’s more!

Lord YOUR God, is God of gods and Lord of lords

The great

The Mighty

The awesome

This great mighty and awesome God is YOUR God, He belongs to you because he brought you out.

But this clear-cut confessions about God leads to clear cut worship… It’s the only logical way to live?

He is your Praise!

What a unique statement.

He is YOUR praise, your glory, your worship, your affection, devotion. This God who loves you and chose you, who have invited you into an exclusive relationship also demands exclusive religion!

It’s without distraction or lack of commitment. It’s a total clear cut Praise for the only clear cut God who rules over everything.

Tie into Palm Sunday:

Here Jesus is:“Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

Feels like clear cut praise

Deut 10 forces us to consider who are praise is. It’s the Great, mighty and awesome God.

When the people saw Jesus on a donkey, they saw a political leader, not the Great, mighty and Awesome God!

They saw only a prophet, not the redeeming prophet, priest and king!

They’re praise of Jesus was not clear-cut.

A week later they proclaimed a loud confession: “Crucify him!”

Is your praise of God coupled with total devotion to the God gods and Lord of lords?

Is there any hint of confusion in your mind about who Jesus is as God-incarnate. Who didn’t come as a figure to save a nation, but to establish the Kingdom, to save the nations! To reveal the greatness, might, and awesomeness through his life, death, and resurrection.

A circumcised heart is a crucified heart:

The bloody act of circumcision pointed to the the bloody act of Christ’s death.

Still called to have circumcised hearts:

Galatians 6:15: For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

Clear Cut Lives in Christ is nothing short than being a NEW CREATION!

We are formed and fitted to follow Jesus…

One that dies to self, our own manifestations of who Jesus is. It’s a praise that shapes us into His likeness, and not the other way around!

Jesus wants nothing less than you whole life.

He wants to be nothing less than you clear cut praise.

Clear-Cut Compassion

Love Like the Lord

v. 17-18: , “[God] 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.

v. 19: Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

So many incredible parts of this passage, but can we just take a moment and notice the turn this passage takes?

God is great!

God loves you

God chose you.

God’s fair and 100% just.

God doesn’t take any bribes.

You must have clear cut confessions and clear cut worship.

So far, no issues…

But then we have this very unique, and challenging command:

God executes Jesus to the orphan, widow, and loves the immigrant. So give him food and clothing.

And then this almost bazaar application: “You shall LOVE the immigrant because you were displaced immigrants in Egypt.”

It so reveals God’s heart!

Only command to love where God is not the object of Israel’s Love.

God is not some deity that stays up in his THUSNESS… NO, he loves the orphan, widow, and immigrant. He comes down in his THISNESS!

Therefore, we must love the immigrant.

Clear cut Conduct as Christians means we must copy our Creator God:

It’s significant “ YHWH would enjoin Israel to love someone outside himself.” Awadby

“The God who loved and redeemed Israel desires Israel to become lovers and redeemers themselves.” Arnold

imago Dei: Made in the Image of God

imitatio Dei: Imitate God

“The God who loved and redeemed Israel desires Israel to become lovers and redeemers themselves.” Arnold

Fear the Lord

v. 20: You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear.

Praise: “National Israel had nothing to mark it as noteworthy, other than its distinctive covenant relationship with God.” Arnold

Cut to the heart versus Shot through the Heart “You give love a bad name”