Good morning.
Take your Bibles if you will and open them to the book of Deuteronomy.
Peter would write to the first century church that as long as he was in this tabernacle, as long as he was alive on this earth in the flesh, he would not be negligent to remind
them of the basics, of the things that they had already heard and already believed.
of the things if they could have full use of them, if they could have full utilization of them, they would never fall.
This morning and this afternoon, I encourage you if you can, if it's within your ability to be back for the lesson this afternoon, we're going to take these two lessons from this
passage in Deuteronomy chapter 10, a lesson entitled, The Basics for Everyone.
Sometimes as we study, as we learn things, you know, in school you might have heard it said, I don't think I'm ever gonna use this.
Well, hopefully there will not be anything in the lesson this morning or this afternoon where you would be able to say, I'm not ever going to use this.
For as Moses speaks to the second generation of Israelites, the second generation of this nation that has come out of Egypt,
As he speaks to them in the very last year of his life, he's going to begin in chapter 10 a dialogue with them.
Aaron has died.
Their first high priest has died.
His son is now the high priest.
And as Moses speaks to the people, he is going to remind them of the things that have occurred.
He's going to remind them of the things they've already seen, of the things that they already know, and He is going to encapsulate for them a picture of what God would have
them to do.
Deuteronomy chapter 10 and verse 12 begins, now Israel.
What does the Lord your God require of you?
as Moses begins to speak.
He confronts the nation with a question, one that shows up in many forms, in many fashions throughout Scripture in many different contexts, but Moses is setting before the people
the law a second time.
He is emphasizing to this nation what they have in front of them, and his life is all
Most over.
So Moses is going to ask them again, what does the Lord your God require of you?
as we go through our lives.
We will have periods of reflection, hopefully, introspection.
Times like now, as you transpire from one year to another year and you start to think about, where am I at?
What am I doing?
What time do I have left?
Last year we started the year with two baptisms.
For many of us, this year we've started with multiple funerals.
times where we step back and ask, what should I be doing?
And is what I'm doing right in the eyes of God?
And Moses is challenging Israel to ask that question.
But Moses isn't going to leave it up to Israel's interpretation.
He's not going to leave it up to their assumptions or their guesses.
Moses is going to deliver them the answer.
What does the Lord require, the Lord your God require of you but to fear the Lord your God?
Number one, as you consider the
answer to the question, what does the Lord your God require of you?
It begins in the answer with, to fear the Lord.
The Proverbs writer will tell us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Moses is going to tell the nation as they evaluate what they're doing, as they consider where they're headed, as they're asking the question, at least in the form of him
verbalizing it, what must I
do to be pleasing to God, God's answer returns to them.
Number one, you fear me.
Fear changes people.
You can look through.
studies, journals, experience, and life.
And you will find the reality that fear changes people.
extreme fear can cause extreme harm to people.
But as you consider what God is telling this nation to do, He's not telling them to be afraid of Him.
They were already that.
You remember back in Exodus chapter 19 and Exodus chapter 20 as they're there before the
uh the mount in Sinai as they are standing there observing the mountain on fire, pillars of fire and smoke coming up from the mountain, and a voice that boomed out of the mountain
that was the voice of God declaring to them the Ten Commandments.
And they come to Moses and they say, you go up on the mountain and you hear the voice of God and you get the message of God and you bring it back to us because if we continue to
hear his voice, we're going to die.
They were already afraid of God.
This fear is different.
This is the fear that one has that begins in reverence.
that excludes everything else from the position that God holds in the person's life.
Deuteronomy chapter 6,
as Moses is going to speak to the people and encourage them and teach them how to raise the next generation.
He says to them in verse 13, shall fear the Lord your God and serve Him and shall take oaths in His name.
Moses is going to tell the people as you understand who God is, as you begin to implant into your life your understanding of God and who He is, you will understand there is no
one beside Him.
There is no one equal to Him.
There is definitely no one superior to Him.
And so Moses tells them, you are to fear the Lord and serve Him.
Jesus in Matthew chapter 6 will tell us that a man cannot serve two masters.
He can hold to God, he can love God, he can serve God, or he can serve someone else, but he can't do both.
as Moses prepares the people to live a life and existence without Him as their leader.
He reminds them that he's never been their leader.
God was their leader.
He was always their leader.
He was the one they were to fear, not Moses.
But then consider as well
that Moses doesn't just deliver to Israel the command to fear the Lord.
But he says, what does the Lord your God require of you but to fear the Lord your God to walk in all his ways?
once they've identified who their leader is, what now?
Moses says you don't get to serve God by being stagnant.
You don't get to serve God by standing still.
You don't get to serve God by being someone who says, belong to the Lord.
What do you do?
Nothing.
No.
Now Moses says, you're going to fear the Lord.
And then having determined that He is your leader where He leads, you're going to go.
You're going to walk in all His steps.
You're going to pattern your life after His commands.
You're going to pattern your life after His example.
Over in the book of Micah, Micah chapter 6, we read there in that text from that minor prophet a similar question.
Micah phrases it this way, He has shown you, O man, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
But to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
as Micah reiterates the message of Moses.
He reminds the people in his day that their solemn responsibility was to bow themselves before God and follow His authority.
Israel had a history and these people were well aware of it.
for 38 years, those who were standing there before Moses that day.
had watched all of their loved ones, all of their friends, all of their leaders, all of their elders, all of their warriors who were over the age of 20 on the day that they were
supposed to go into the land which God had promised them.
They had watched all of them die.
except Moses.
except Joshua, except Caleb.
They watched them all die.
Some of them died in plagues.
Some of them died in battle.
Some of them died simply in the wilderness.
but fraught throughout their entire history of that 38 years as they were wandering from Sinai in the wilderness before they would eventually go into the land, they watched a
people die in rebellion.
that would claim they had served God, they would claim they had done what God said, they had claimed that they had gone where God told them to go, only they had rebelled every
step of the way.
Moses is going to address the second generation, those who were born after they left Egypt, but also those who were below the age of 20 when they left Egypt, who had witnessed
all of these things, who remembered Egypt, who grew up in Egypt.
And he's going to remind them the first thing you do is you fear the Lord.
The second thing you do is you walk in all His ways.
but then consider as well.
that he says and to love him.
when Israel was confronted by Moses with what they were to do.
He didn't say, this is how you fear God, this is how you please God.
Blind submission.
He didn't say that.
Moses spoke to the people he did not tell them never question anything the Lord says never wonder about anything that's going to happen blind obedience is what the Lord calls for.
I didn't say that.
Now Moses said, first thing you're going to do is you're going to fear Him.
You're going to reverence Him and put Him in the place that He belongs in your life.
Then you're going to walk after Him.
And as you fear Him and put Him in the right place and as you walk after Him in all of His ways, you're going to love Him.
Think about the times in life.
where I've been introduced to a third party by a close friend.
someone who knows me really well and knows them really well.
And they say, Aaron, I want to introduce you to somebody.
You're going to love this person.
And because they know me really well and they know them really well, they've already figured it out.
This is going to work.
These two are gonna fit.
Moses.
knew God really well.
Moses had had experiences with the Lord that no other person on the planet had had.
Moses is telling this people if you'll put him in the right place and if you'll walk in his ways.
then you'll love him.
When Jesus was asked, what's the greatest commandment in the law?
Jesus would tell the one who asked, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, with all thy might.
God never demanded obedience apart from love.
God condemns all obedience that is apart from love.
And Moses is going to tell this people, you've got to love your God.
Again, in Deuteronomy chapter 6, just a few chapters over.
Moses will say to the people, verse 4, hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.
And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart.
If you're going to put God in the place where He belongs, and if you're going to walk in all of His ways, how are you going to learn to love Him?
And Moses gives you the answer.
You take His Word, you take His commandments, you take His message, and you put it in your life.
and you come to know who He is.
and you come to serve Him not out of fear and being afraid, but out of love.
over in the book of John.
In John chapter 17, Jesus, in the midst of a prayer before His disciples in the upper room, as He is preparing to go back out of that room, out to the garden to be betrayed, to
be imprisoned, to be taken, to be beaten, to be killed, and to be crucified for us.
Will say in that prayer, verse 1, Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you.
As you have given him authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him, and this is eternal life.
If the very Son of God were to define eternal life for you,
you would know what it means.
Well, He did.
And this is what He said it was.
And this is eternal life that they may know you.
the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
Jesus tells us.
that eternal life is bound up in the very definition of knowing God.
And Jesus, who knew God, said he loved God.
And Jesus made it clear that if we would come to know Him, we would love God.
back in deuteronomy chapter 10.
Moses says, was the Lord require of you?
but to fear the Lord your God.
To walk in all of His ways.
To love Him, but He doesn't stop there.
He says to serve
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
when you've put God in the right place.
when you've determined to set your path so that where his footsteps lead you, that's where you're going to go.
When you've looked at what He has said to you, you've taken it, you've instilled it in your life and into your heart so as to know who He is and what He has told you to do and
what He expects of you, then, Moses says, then serve Him.
We often in our society have such a mixed view of service.
We have a view of service kind of like going to a restaurant that someone who's going to wait on our table is serving us.
And if they do a good job, they get a good tip, and if they do a bad job, they don't get any tip.
Or they get a lesser one.
We consider service to be something that we expect in some scenarios and don't in others.
There was a time in this country where you would expect full service out of a gas station.
Not anymore.
That's called self-service.
Get out of your own vehicle, fill it up.
but we struggle with service as a concept.
We struggle with it mostly because we don't want to humble ourselves to be servants.
We don't want to view ourselves as those who are forced to serve.
Yet if we are actually humble, we realize that in moments where we have the opportunity, we are blessed to serve.
I don't want do it because somebody makes me do it.
I want to do it because I want to do it.
And yet...
when we're placed in this position in relationship to God.
We're called and commanded to serve.
And Joshua will confront the people in his last message with the same scenario.
In Joshua chapter 24, Joshua gathers all the tribes of all of Israel to Shechem.
In chapter 24, verse 1, he called the elders of Israel for their heads, for their judges, for their officers.
and they presented themselves before God.
And Joshua said to all the people, thus says the Lord God of Israel, your fathers, including Tira, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of
the river in old times, and they served other gods.
Joshua confronts Israel with their history, with what they knew to be true, with what Moses had revealed to them and taught them by the revelation of God that their people
hadn't always done what was right.
that they weren't going to do right just because they happened to come out of Israel.
Because Israel hadn't always done right.
And he says to them, then I took your father Abraham from the other side of the river, led him throughout all the land of Canaan and multiplied his descendants and gave him Isaac.
To Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau, to Esau I gave the mountains of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt.
Also I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt.
According to what I did among them, afterward I brought you out.
Then I brought your fathers out of Egypt, and you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued your fathers with the chariot and horsemen to the Red Sea.
So they cried out to the Lord, and He put darkness between you and the Egyptians, brought the sea upon them, and covered them.
And your eyes saw what I did in Egypt.
Then you dwelt in the wilderness a long time."
and I brought you into the land of the Amorites, who dwelt on the other side of the Jordan, and they fought with you, but I gave them into your hand, that you might possess
their land, and I destroyed them from before you." Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose to make war against Israel and sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse
you.
But I would not listen to Balaam, therefore he continued to bless you, so I delivered you out of his hand."
Then you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho, and the men of Jericho fought against you, also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the
Hivites, and the Jebusites.
But I delivered them into your hand.
I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out from before you, also the two kings of the Amorites, but not with your sword or with your bow.
I have given you a land for which you did not labor.
and cities for which you did not build.
And you dwell in them, you eat of the vineyards and the olive groves which you did not plant.
Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth.
And put away the gods which your father served on the other side of the river and in Egypt.
Serve the Lord.
Joshua goes through this list of all the things for hundreds of years that God had done for Israel to prove to Israel that they should serve Him and Him alone.
But he concludes it with, and if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord.
Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.
Whether the gods which your father served which were on the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell, but as for me and my house, we will
serve the Lord.
Joshua said, know who I serve, and I know who my people will serve.
And we're not going to depart for the right hand or the left.
We're going to serve the Lord.
Moses calls upon Israel to make a choice.
fear God, to walk in His ways, to love Him, to serve Him.
And then he says, verse 13, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes, which I command you today for your good.
Moses declares to the people.
God is going to tell you what to do.
God is going to give you His commandments.
God is going to lay forth His statutes, His laws, His ordinances.
and your job is to keep them.
Your job is to hold on to them.
to not neglect them.
to hold fast to the things which he tells you to do, to not depart from them, to not set them aside as insignificant, to not push them away from yourself and say, I'm not
interested in that.
Moses says, you've got to keep the commandments of the Lord.
Deuteronomy chapter 28.
a little deeper into the message that Moses gives to the nation.
We find in Deuteronomy 28 and verse 1, now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all His commandments which I command
you today that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth and all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you
because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.
Moses told Israel, if you'll do this, if you will keep His commandments.
It won't go unnoticed.
God won't be blind to it.
As a matter of fact, every commandment He gave, He gave for your good.
one of the struggles.
that exists as a parent.
is the fact that you don't know perfectly everything you need to teach.
when you get that new baby and you bring them home from the hospital.
You have this sudden realization that you are entirely ignorant of everything you need to know.
And it doesn't matter how many good-hearted and kind individuals tell you everything you need to know, you can't absorb it all.
And then you're challenged for the next many years to stay one step ahead of that kid.
in what you need to know so you can tell them what they need.
and you hope very earnestly that anything that you tell them doesn't lead them down the wrong path.
My mother often wondered aloud why it was that her three sons could learn all of her bad habits without her ever telling them to and couldn't learn anything that she told them to
do in spite of how many times she told them.
And yet, are we not truly blessed that when it comes to our Father in heaven, there's never been a bad example?
There's never been an action that we couldn't emulate that wouldn't have turned out better for us if we did than if we didn't.
There's never been a statement, there's never been a word, there's never been a command, there's never been an instruction where we would have been better off had we not done it.
More often than not, the only problem is we don't have the foresight to keep His commandments before we understand them.
1 John chapter 5.
John writes to the church,
He says in verse 1, whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.
And everyone who loves Him, who begot, also loves Him who is begotten of Him.
By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments.
For this is the love of God.
As John pens these words, I wonder if his mind was going back to that upper room.
Whereas he sat there with Jesus, Jesus said the words to his disciples, if you love me, keep my commandments.
and you are my friends.
If you do whatsoever, I command you.
John writes to the church, for this is the love of God that we keep His commandments and His commandments are not burdensome.
Moses is going to tell Israel.
What does the Lord require of you?
to fear the Lord.
to walk in His ways, to love Him.
to keep His commandments and to serve Him with all your heart.
And today, nothing's changed.
for what did Jesus command us to do?
but to die to self, to be buried in that watery grave of baptism, to have our sins washed away and our allegiance to ourselves put away.
and to rise in newness of life to serve our God.
To love Him and to keep His commandments.
To walk in all of His ways.
if you're here this morning and you're outside the body of Christ.
You cannot do what is required of you from outside the body of Christ.
You cannot do what is required of you from outside of the church for which Christ died.
You cannot do what God requires of you alone.
and you cannot do what God requires of you in your sins.
We'd love to help you change that if you are at all willing this morning.
But if you were to glance forward in the text, might find that that wasn't all Moses told them to do.
So I hope you'll be back at 1 30 as we discuss the rest.
If you have need of the invitation, why not come now?