Understanding Love for God According to Deuteronomy

Good morning and once again, thank you for joining us in our journey through the book of Deuteronomy. We come to chapter 10, and we will go all the way to chapter 11 this morning/ I'd like to ask you a question, how do you know if you are someone in love? Well, I checked Google, I typed it in, and the AI overview tells me you can't stop thinking about her. Number two. Your phone is glued to your hand. You're always checking if he or she has messaged back. You prioritize her. You organize your life around that person. Your life feels more exciting when you are with that person. You are a little jealous when she spends or he spends time with another person, and you can't imagine a life without her. I guess many of you understand what it means to be in love, but do you know how you can tell if you really love God? How do you know if you love God? Now, that's the question, I think Moses is able to help us with.

You see, what we have been studying so far is a book that reminds us what it means to have a loving relationship with God. We looked at chapter 6 and at famous centerpiece prayer for the Jewish people. This is what every Jewish boy would learn the moment he is able to speak. This is what he prays every single day. This is what he hopes to say when he is about to die. The Shema, the centerpiece prayer of Israel. It consists of that fundamental doctrine that the Lord that is the name Yahweh in Hebrew is God, and there is none beside him. And it contains that fundamental duty that we are to love God with all our heart and soul and strength. But what does it mean to love God? Well, chapter 6 to 11 will continue to explain and to elaborate this love for God. So, the Shema is explained or emphasized or elaborated on in chapter 6 to 11. This is about loving God. And in chapter 6, we learned that a few weeks ago, loving God would mean that we would also want to teach this to our children. So, we see loving God requires a relay of this love to the next generation, to our children and to our children's children. Chapter 7, if you can recall, is about how Israel is commanded to devote the Canaanites to destruction so that there is no temptation, there is no possibility for them to switch to other gods. And I think Moses is teaching them in order to love God, you also need to ring-fence around this love, protect this love. Do not allow yourself to be distracted or to be lured by other gods. Last week, we looked at Chapters 8 to 10, where Moses used a lot of the word remember and forget not. Remember God in your pain, remember God in your prosperity, remember God in your pardon. So, he's saying, in order to love God more, we should remember him more. Now we come to chapters 10 and 11, the final two chapters in this elaboration of the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods”, to love God and Moses here himself will be giving final reminders of what this love will be like.

The Structure and Repetition in Deuteronomy 10-11

Now, why do I say chapter 10 and chapter 11 are about the reminders of love? Because chapter 10, verse 12 to chapter 11 looks like this, like this and like this. You say, “How in the world do you say that there are reminders? I can't see a single thing.” Well, just to show you, it really contains this repeated pattern of exaltations to Israel, to obey and to love. Don't worry. Don't stress about the words I'll show you in detail later. But I just want you to see the structure, the literary structure of verse 12 in chapter 10, all the way to chapter 11, verse 32 there are repeated commands to love and to obey God. You see those frequencies, if you count them, there are seven repetitions there, and they all look like this, interspersed with the words in between about motivations to love God and the manifestations to love God.

So, in chapter 10, verse 12 to 13, Moses says, love God, keep His commandments, amongst other things. Chapter 11, verse 1, love God keep his charge. Chapter 11 verse 8, keep the whole commandment. Chapter 11, verse 13, obey my commandments to love the Lord. Chapter 11, verse 22 obey all this commandment loving the Lord and verse 27 obey the commandments, and 11:32 do all the statutes. So, if I may say, I think Moses is kind of doing a little bit of holy nagging, just to remind please remember to love God, obey Him. Love God, obey Him. Love God, obey him, seven times.

The Meaning of Loving God

So, we come to this section of reminders of loving God. Now we are going to see three things from this passage. Number one, we're going to understand the meaning of loving God. What does it mean to love God and the best text of this entire segment of Scripture, I think will be found right here, verse 12 and 13. It describes to you. It gives you the various words, verbs, action words that will emphasize and enrich the concept of loving God, because you see these words, fear, walk, love, serve, keep, and some of these words will be repeated in the seven repetitions. So, let's put them to one side, fear, walk, love, serve, keep, and they will look like this, all right. These five verbs together give you a full-orbed understanding of what it means to have a right relationship with God, a loving relationship with God. You can picture them like various aspects of a beautiful jewel. It comes together to explain what love for God will be like. Five, six words with one heartbeat.

So, let's start with the first, to fear God. The Hebrew word is the word “Yare”, which means to be afraid, to fear, to revere, to be in awe, to respect who God really is. Now, some people immediately have a little bit of a jam here, a traffic jam in their head, because they think to themselves, “How can I love God if I also fear God?” Does it make sense to you? How can I love God, if I also fear God. In fact, they are very troubled because they remember 1 John 4:18, where it says, “…perfect love casts out fear.” So, it reinforces into their minds that if I love God. I cannot fear God, and if I fear God, I cannot love God, because they seem to be mutually exclusive, like oil and water. But I'd like you to do something. I'd like you to go to 1 John 4:18 on your phones or on your Bibles or on your iPads. I want you to do it yourself. 1 John 4:18 says very clearly, “…perfect love casts out fear”, so can fear and love of God co-exist? This is the exact same question from one of our CG leaders when we meet on Tuesday night zoom. It's a good question. I like you to look at 1 John 4:18 and I like you to read a little bit ahead and a little bit behind. So, look at verse 17, verse 18, and you continue verse 18. And I hope you see, that you will learn that 1 John 4:18, the fear is about what? Anybody wants to tell me? Perfect love casts out fear, but fear of what? Fear of judgment, fear of punishment. So, what John is saying here is that love of God and the fear of God can co-exist, because 1 John 4:18 is often misunderstood. It teaches that there is no more fear of judgment, but it does not say that there is no more proper fear of God. So, the fear of God and the love of God co-exist. It should.

In fact, I think when we know how great God is, that's what fear is. We recognize the greatness of God. We fully respect Him, and we realize that even though He is so great and we are so puny, he still loves us in the gospel of Jesus Christ, we will love Him even more. So, I say to you to love God is to fear God. To fear God is to love God, just as Moses has explained to us right here, the five words that are giving us a richer understanding of a right relationship with God. So, number one, fear the Lord.

Secondly, you are to walk in his ways. To walk in God's ways means that your manner of life is one that is pleasing to God and one that glorifies God. So, if you say you love God, check your life. Do you practically walk in his ways. Now, I think Singapore, there are some interesting news in recent days. I think just two, three days ago, there is this man called Johnson Wen from Australia, who came to Universal Studios. You know what I'm talking about. Don't know, you all never read news? He came to Universal Studios, and he gate-crashed, and he dashed and charged at Ariana Grande, and he was so happy that he did so. But he created such shock and horror to Ariana Grande. Of course, what he did was wrong. He was quickly escorted out of the venue, and I heard that he was charged in court for public nuisance. But this is not the first time he is doing this. He is a serial gate crasher. He glamorizes what he does on his Instagram page. He would gate crash Katy Perry and chain smokers and whatever else. I think you can see that in his Instagram page. But what's worse is this video I saw him do, and then as he walks around, he struts his stuff. He is arrogant and cocky about it, and he points to his T shirt, which says what? - “Love King Jesus”. I want to die. I mean, this is love King Jesus? You are arrested for public nuisance. You are released because they are going to give you a charge later, and in the meanwhile, you go around saying, “I love King Jesus”? Whatever it is, it is not love. You, I would say to him, you don't love Jesus, you don't love God, because if you love God, you would walk in his ways. You will not do things that shame his name. You will not do things that cause him wrath or anger. So, to love God is to fear God. To love God is to live in a way that pleases Him. To love God, obviously, is to love him. I think in this context, the love here gives a unique contribution, speaking about the devotion or the affection or the delight of a man with God.

Stories told of a lady who was very unhappily married. She resented all the things she has to do for her husband. One day, her husband died, and she remarried, and now she is happily in love, crazy in love, and she is so happy with her life. And as she was cleaning up the house, one day, she found a note, a note she has written a long time ago saying how she hated to do all these chores for her husband, only to realize that what she wrote years ago is exactly what she is doing right now. What made it a delight is that she is now in love. You see, Christianity is not just about dry drudgery. It's not about just gritting your teeth and going through the motions. Love for God is about a passion. It's about the delight in this person, the great and mighty God who is so good to us.

The Bible, or Moses, continues to tell us that real love for God would demand a certain attitude and posture of life to serve the Lord. If we love God, we would serve the Lord. Now let me give you a picture, and I like you to just look at this and tell me, what do you see? What is this a picture of? Picture of MRT. No, this is in, I am told, in China. This is a picture of love. This is a picture of servanthood. Why? If you notice, well, the story goes, actually, the boy gave the seat to another lady, but he would also let his mom sit at the corner seat. He would take her bags so that she can rest, and he will put his hand so that she can lie her head against his hand. This is a boy who understands service. This is a boy who understands love. If you love someone, you will serve that person. If you love God, you will give your life to serve God. Love is not just empty talk. It's about practical deeds. And then Moses would tell us, to love God means that you will keep His commandments. There's something very concrete about love in the Bible, it's not just coming to church on Sunday morning, sing songs, feel good and say, ‘Hallelujah, I love God”. Nope, real love for God is going to be seen in the way you keep His commandments, you don't bend his rules, but you want to obey Him in every aspect of life, and yet you don't do it with dry drudgery. You do it with delight.

And then I want to say there's one more verb that we could keep, or we could see in verse 22 of chapter 11. I think it should be included here, and it is to “hold fast”. The word “hold fast” means to cleave. That's the word used in Genesis 2:24. A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. So, it's about that joining, that holding tight. Real love endures. How do you know you love your wife? When you stay with your wife for your whole life. For better, for worse, for richer and poorer. That's love. It's enduring, and the love for God is enduring. If you really love God, you will endure to the end. So, I think all these aspects teach us what it means to have a loving relationship with God. It's a full-orbed glorious jewel that Moses is giving us here.

Now, when I was thinking about this on the train, I came up with a few words that start with the same letter, my typical pattern. I do not know why I'm wired this way nowadays, but that's how it is. To help me remember the first set is not so useful. But just for fun, the first is about “Awe”. To have the right love for God, you have the awe of God. Number two, you walk in alignment with God. Number three, you have the right affection. Number four, you will have the attitude of attendance to God in service. Number five, you have the right adherence to His laws. And number six, you have the right allegiance. So, I think this helps me to remember, but I don't think this is very helpful actually, because it doesn't quite categorize the six words in the right place. So, I think the next one is better. It might help you. First, the fear of God tells me that to love God, I need to have the right “Perspective” that he is a great God. The fear of God reminds us that the right love and relationship with God requires a big perspective. Number two, walk in us all his ways tell me that the love for God will be manifested in the right “Practice” of life. This will be the way you conduct your life. You live your life to please God and to glorify God. You want to guess the third one? This one is the easy one. Very good, you have the right “Passion” for God. It's not just dry drudgery. It's a red-hot passion. Number four? Fear speaks about “Perspective”. Walk speaks about “Practice”. Love speaks about “Passion”. Serve speaks about “Preference”. Good guess, but no. Very good, speaks about “Posture”. Posture, right? You take on the posture of a servant, a lowly servant. Number five? This one, not so cool, but that's the best I can come up with – “Principles”. This is how you live by. You don't live by your own rules. You don't live by the world's rules. You keep to God's word, and number six, “Perseverance”.

So, I think what love looks like is that you will have the right perspective of God. You don't despise God. You have a big view of God. Two, you have the right practice of life. You don't live a life that is self-willed or self-centered, you live your life to glorify Him and to please Him. Three, there will be a proper passion for him, a song we will sing later on. You have a right posture to serve God. You don't look to God to serve you. You know that he gave you eternal life to serve Him, and you are glad you can do so. You have the right principles to guide you in your life. This is what you live by. You don't live by man's opinions, but live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, and number six, you will endure to the end.

So, my question to you is – “If this is the meaning of loving God, according to Moses, would you say you love God today?” Because it's not just a feeling, it's all these things, neither is it just doing the externalities and having no passion within. Maybe you're a young person who have grown up in a Christian home, and all along, you have played the game, you have done your part, you look the part. But real love for God would have all these six aspects, I believe so. It's a divine thing. Do you have it?

The Motivations of Loving God

Moses goes on. Because in the text, he's going to teach us not only about the meaning of love, but the motivations of love. And I will just tell you right up front what the two motivations are. Number one, it is the love of God, and number two, it is the wrath of God. Again, these are not difficult things to see. It's right there in the text, in Deuteronomy 10. The first part, or I mean, verse 12 to 22 speaks about the love of God. And then in chapter 11, verse 2 to 7, it's going to speak about the wrath of God. Let me show it to you. 10, verse 14 onwards, it says, “Behold…”, so pay attention. Look, why should you love God? Because, look “Behold to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. [Deuteronomy 10:14-15]. So, he's prefacing what he's going to say here with the greatness of God. Look at this. Behold this great God. What has he done? Verse 15, “…has set his heart in love on your fathers…” and on you. So, Moses is appealing to Israel to love God, because, amazingly, this great God who actually owns everything, has uniquely set his love on you. I'm not going to go through the in between verses. I’m just going to jump to verse 22 and again, it closes with this idea that God has been so good to you Israel, because you were so small, but now you are so big. Look at how God has loved you, so love him. That’s the main idea.

I read about one of the famous, well-known diplomats in Singapore. His name is Mr. Kishore Mahbubani, and recently he spoke about “The secret sauce of Singapore”. You know, secret sauce, like a recipe, right? Secret Recipe your grandma does not want to tell other people one, but you go and tell. He spoke about the secret sauce of Singapore. And he said the secret sauce of Singapore is really very simple. It's “MPH”. “See me, si, MPH?” [Hokkien colloquial for “what is?”] Multi-Purpose Hall?, MPH bookstore? Miles per hour? No, “MPH” stands for three words. Number one, “Meritocracy”. The secret sauce of Singapore is that people do not get into positions because of family connections or because of money, but because they are the best man for the job. That's what keeps Singapore going. Meritocracy. Second word, “Pragmatism”. We look for what works. We don't just do things because it's cultural or historical or because we want to please people. Pragmatism. And the third “H” is? Very good “Honesty”. So, we want to be corruption free as best as we can. And so, he says, “These are the secret ingredients to the secret sauce”. But meritocracy, even though it's a great thing here in Singapore, is not the ultimate thing. Why? Because in the kingdom of God, He doesn't operate by meritocracy. In the kingdom of God, if God operates on meritocracy, no one will be in the kingdom, because we are all sinners. We are all so ruined and rebellious. And so, the kingdom of God operates on sovereign grace. We learned that in Deuteronomy 7:6-8, God did not love Israel because Israel was fantastic or big or strong or capable. God love Israel because God simply chose to love Israel. As we have learned, God chose us, not because of us, but in spite of us. And a Spurgeon would say, God did not save you because he saw something worth saving. He saved you out of sheer, pure grace and mercy. It is this kind of love that motivates you and I to love God. Because when we realize just how sinful, dirty, ugly, rebellious, repulsive we are, and God can still love me, then I truly understand what it means to love God. The moment we think that God loves me because I am so capable, I am so nice, I'm so kind, we don't love God the way we should. So, as the Bible would say, by the mercies of God, present yourselves a living sacrifice. Love Him because of His infinite mercies towards you.

The second reason, as I've mentioned, is the wrath of God. Now, many people, I think, would read chapter 11, verse 2 to 7, as if it is God saving Israel. But actually, it's not. Look at it more carefully. He's giving a second reason why you should love God. That's why he uses “And consider today…” So, the first word was, “Behold”. Second word is “Consider.” Consider what? “…consider today, the discipline”.The cane, the "Téng tiáo" (藤條), my mum will always say. Consider the discipline. It's the punishment that comes, and we know that it is the wrath and the punishment part because of the references to the destruction of Pharaoh and Egypt, to his soldiers and in the Red Sea and how God destroyed. So, God is saying, Moses is saying, love God, because God deals with his enemies. He destroys his enemies, like Pharaoh, like Egypt, and not only them, but also to your fathers. How he dealt with a rebellious nation of Israel, what he did to you in the wilderness. Why did you wander in the wilderness? Because you rebelled against God. So, consider the wrath of God, the judgment of God, and not only that, “…Dathan Abiram, the sons of Eliab, sons of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed…” those who rebelled against God.

So, you can see clearly this is about the wrath of God. So, what Moses is saying is that if you obey me and love the Lord, then he will give rain for your land. (Deuteronomy 11:13-17) So, because of God's love, remain in his love and He will bless you. But if you choose to rebel against God and you turn aside to serve other gods, then the Bible says he will be angry with you, and there will be no rain and you will perish. So, there is this dual path of blessing and a curse. Blessing, if you obey his commandments, a curse if you do not obey the commandments, and this will be very graphically etched in their minds forever when they enter the Promised Land and go to Mount Gerizim and Ebal. The instructions are given to Israel that when you go into the promised land in the days of Joshua, half of you will go to Gerizim, half of you will go to Ebal, and there you will pronounce the blessings at Gerizim, and you pronounce the curses at Ebal, so that all Israel will know you have a choice. If you love Me and keep My commandments, there will be blessings, but if you hate me and disobey my commandments, there will be curses. That's why you need to love God. He loves you and blessed you. And if you don't, and you prove yourself to be people who do not believe him or love him, there will be judgment. And in the New Testament, I think it is the same for the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh, reap corruption. (Galatians 6:8) It doesn't matter what you say. If you live a life pleasing your own flesh, you don't want to walk in His will. You don't want to serve God. You do not want to keep His commandments. You do not want to love him. You do not want to revere him. Fine. Go and live your life. Sow to your flesh. You know what you will get at the end of life? Corruption. And the word corruption here, I don't think refers to contamination, it refers to destruction, because the parallel is that if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life. So, if you love God, if you obey the Spirit, if you keep His commandments, if you do this because you love him, at the end of the life, you're going to get eternal life. But if you don't, you'll be judged. Doesn't matter if you have been attending church service for all your life, because all it shows is that you are a church attendee, but you don't have a heart that loves God, and you will end up with destruction.

There is a famous tree in Singapore, well, at least I was informed about it only recently. It's a heritage tree along Upper Serangoon Road. You know where this is from, from our church, you drive down to the city, will pass by somewhere near Woodleigh. This heritage tree, and I read recently that it has been chopped down. Why chopped down? You know why? Because it's dead on the inside. It's hollow on the inside. It looked really good on the outside, but it's dead on the inside. Well, I thought about you and I because we may look good, we may be a heritage here in gospel light, you've been here from the beginning. You are well known. People walk by, they know that you have been in church, but if you are hollow on the inside, one day, the government will come and chop you down.

So why should I love God? Because he first loved me. But if I show that I actually do not really know him, believe him, fear him, or love him, I should never assume that just because I'm in church, I will be all right, because I'm going to face the wrath of God. They who sow to the flesh will reap corruption or destruction.

The Manifestations of Loving God

Finally, this is the shortest, good news for you, right? The Manifestations. So, we've looked at the meaning of love from the five or six verbs gathered together that clustered there in verse 12 to 13. We've looked at the motivations of love, as Moses would tell us in the first section in chapter 10 and the second section in chapter 11. We're going to pick up some of the clues in between these texts to tell us what love for God will look like.

Practically, it will look - number one like you will love the sojourner. The word “Sojourner” here means those who are passing by. Those are aliens. Those are foreigners, those who are not Jews. So, the Jewish people have a very distinct identity, but they are not to be mean and unkind to Gentiles. They are to love the sojourner. They are to love people, because ultimately, people are all made in the image of God. Number two, not only are they to love the sojourner, they are to teach their children. So now we come to another literary device. We began the Shema instruction in chapter six with teaching children. We're ending the Shema section here in chapter 11 with, again, teaching children. So, we know that we have come a full, orb understanding of the first commandment - teach your children. And number three, you are not to go after other gods that you have not known. So again, maybe this is a good check for you. Do you really love God? Three things for you to check. Do you, number one, love people? I think for the Israelites is to love the Gentiles, the sojourners, the foreigners. But I think in the New Testament, we are also called to love our neighbor, love everyone, and in particular, do you love your brethren? One of the great marks of a Christian is that he loves his brother. I think that's repeated many times in the Bible. So, my question to you is, do you love your brother? Because that's what loving God would look like, and if you want to grow in love for God by loving your brethren more, let me sell some koyok this morning. “Koyok” is a colloquial Hokkien way of saying, “I want to sell my goods, but I'm not selling anything in a sense, I'm promoting”. I'm promoting what? I'm promoting, church camp next year. Do join us. Church camp next year, 10th to 13th of June, because last year's or this year's camp was about training in Godliness. We want to have a right, vertical relationship with God. Next year, we are going to look at what it means to have a right, horizontal relationship with God. Now you say, I don't want, I don't want to go church camp. I don't like to love people, people here in Gospel, a very irritating one. Well, all the more we need to come because we don't love one another because one another is always very nice and kind. We don't, but we love one another because we love God. And if you are serious about your faith, I will tell you, take this opportunity to learn what it means. And I think the strange thing always is that when you start to love one another the way God wants you to, you will enjoy it. You'll find great joy in doing so, and in the process, you really glorify God in doing so. So, join us in camp next year, because the manifestation of loving God is that you love one another in particular.

Number two, have the right leadership at home. Lead your children to Christ, lead your people to God, lead your CG to God, lead your friends, your colleagues, to God. Because if you really love God, you can't keep it to yourself, you will want to lead others to him. And number three, you have a deep loyalty to God. You obey Him, you will love Him, you will not depart from Him, you will not serve other gods. I think that's what I can pick up from Moses. Now, can I end with this? If you're here today and you say, “Wow, love God, very hard. How to do that, how to have the right perspective, how to have the right practice, how to have the right passion, how to have the right posture, how to have the right principles, how to have the right perseverance. Sounds so hard. I don't have this heart”. And really, if you recognize you don't have this heart, you may be on the right track, because this love for God is not natural to men. The Bible makes it very clear. We are enemies of God. The Bible makes it very clear, we have all gone astray. The Bible makes it very clear there is no fear of God in their hearts. (Romans chapter three). So, if you recognize you don't have this heart, you are where God wants you to be for today. But I hope that from the Bible, you will also see you need to move on from there. That's the right starting point, but that's not the end point. How can you and I really love God here in Deuteronomy 10:16, a verse I did not explain, is where I want to end off the message, because Moses recognizes the vast majority don't have such a heart.

The Role of Circumcision in the Heart

To love God is to have all the five, six verbs. To love God is to love the sojourner, to teach the children and to not serve other gods. And Moses knew they didn't have this heart. So, Moses says, in order for you to get this heart, look at this, “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart…” [Deuteronomy 10:16] It's always about the heart, as was alluded to in Deuteronomy 5:29 – “Oh, that they had such a heart as this always…” the reality is that they don't have. But how can you and I circumcise the foreskin of my heart? I mean, even if you are a great cardio thoracic surgeon, you will not survive this. You can't do this to yourself, and you won't survive, you'll die. So, I think it is written deliberately in such a way that stirs the readers or the hearers to think, I really cannot circumcise my own heart, only God can do it. I think that's the point, and that is the point that is emphasized henceforth, where in chapter 30, Moses is going to come back to the idea of circumcision and say, actually, it's not you who are circumcised. You need to be willing to circumcise, just like maybe a child or the parents would say, I'm going to bring my child for circumcision. The child or the parent must be willing for someone else to do that circumcision. So, God is the one who will circumcise your heart. And look at this, so that you will love the Lord. (Deuteronomy 30:6)

You realize this? You can't love the Lord in your natural state. God has to do something so that you can love him. Christianity is not about you trying to love God. It's about God doing something to you first. He must do that in you, for you, to you. Then you can love God. This is repeated in the later prophets like Ezekiel, who will talk about a new heart, but he incorporates new ideas with clean water and a new spirit. Something which Jesus would pick on in John chapter 3:5, talking about being born again of water and the Spirit. He's talking about Ezekiel 36:25-26, he's talking about that circumcision. He's talking about that divine operation of the heart.

The Call to Humility and Repentance

And this is also what Paul would pick up on. Circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit. [Romans 2:29] It's a supernatural work. And also, in Colossians 2:11, circumcision made without hands, the circumcision of Christ. What I'm saying to you is, Moses clearly says to Israel, I know you don't love God, but you need to love God, and in order for you to love God, you need to be circumcised. You need to humble yourself and come to God. Therefore, circumcise the foreskin of your heart. Ask God to do it for you “…and be no longer stubborn”. [Deuteronomy 1016]

The problem for Israel is not that they do not know, but that they do not want. Isn't it the case for many of you, you know Christianity, you know the gospel, you know you are heading for hell. You know that there is a real God, you know that there is forgiveness for your sins, but you will not come. Why? Because you are stubborn. You still want to insist on your own ways. You want to love your life. You want to risk your life, and you refuse God because you love the world and you love sin so much. And so you reject God. Week after week you reject God.

So, Moses says, “Don't be stubborn anymore”. And isn't this the same idea Stephen would speak of in Acts 7:51, “You stiff-necked people…” You're stubborn. You're uncircumcised in your heart and in your ears. You're not listening well. You always resist the Holy Spirit. God is working in your heart, but you refuse to let him in.

Love God, and the only way you can love God is come to God. Humble yourself and be no longer stubborn. I hope today you will turn from your sin and come to Him, for He has given you his Son to die and to pay for your sins.

Let's bow for a word of prayer together, Father, we thank you today for your word, and we pray Your people will hear your voice with humility. May they no longer be stubborn or stiff-necked. May they come to Jesus for forgiveness and salvation. Then we pray for our church that we will be a people who understand what it means to love you, and we will obey your commandment to love you with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Give us a passion for you. We ask in Jesus' name, Amen.