Can we also turn back to the passage we read in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 10, and reading again the 12th verse? 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, and to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Being a Christian is more than having a certain label. It's more than belonging to a particular community. It's more than having a certain set of beliefs. It's more than living a particular lifestyle. It's a relationship. And it's important that we would know how to practice it. And we can only know how to practice it by reading the Word of God. It will not come naturally to us. Not completely, at least. And also, we are dealing with God and not man. It is not a relationship of equals. Although the Son of God became man and remains so, He is our Lord, He is still God, and we relate to Him not exactly as we relate to our fellow men. He is God and not man. He sets the terms of this relationship, and we follow. And that is the only way in which we can be blessed. As the hymn writer put it, trust and obey. There's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. We read two summaries of what God expects of his people. One in Romans chapter 12, where the apostle says, I beseech you by the mercies of God, give your bodies as a living sacrifice. And then he goes on to speak of the practical ways in which we should live among our fellow men and towards the Lord to please him. We read that verse in Deuteronomy chapter 10. Now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? But to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways and to love him to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. We look at that verse, we think of the parallel in Romans 12, and three things come to our mind. The question, what service does God require of us? And the first thing is, what is it? What is this service? What is he asking of us? The second question is, how should we do it? Is there any particular way in which we should render this service to God? But the third question, just as practical, is how can I be motivated to do it? Is that an admission of spiritual debt? Well, fair enough, so be it. How can I be motivated to do it? It's a very practical question. And how can I get the inner strength to do it? So let's think about these three things this evening. What is this service? What is it? What does it consist of? First of all, we look at that verse in Deuteronomy 10 and we see a number of things. Fear the Lord your God, walk in all his ways, love him, serve him. What's this then? Fear the Lord your God. Cynics and militant atheists would say, oh, that's just the God of the Old Testament fear and terror and all the rest of it, what utter nonsense. What it means quite simply in the consistent usage of that word is have a Jew regard for him. Have a Jew regard for him. And we can understand that. We know all sorts of people. They're in different positions. They're in different relationships to us. We know what it means to regard one person in this way, another person in a different way, and so on. Have a due regard for God is what it means here. And that's not a skill. That's not something we just choose to do. It's something much deeper. It's a basic cast of mind. It's our attitude towards Him. It doesn't come more fundamental than that. We can develop it, but it has to be there in the first place. And we find, for example, in Malachi chapter one, The Lord speaking to his people, if I'm a father, where is my honor? This is how I ought to be regarded. The Lord says to us, how should you regard me? What should that lead you to do? What attitudes should you have? How should you act? Because I am who I am, What is the appropriate way? What attitude is appropriate? And then what sort of conduct is appropriate? Fear the Lord your God. We're aware of his holiness. We're aware of his power. Surely, apart from anything else, that should make us afraid of offending Him. Indeed, just not wanting to offend Him. Do we not love what is holy? It should also lead to a desire to imitate Him. If we love what is holy, naturally we will want to imitate. We tend to imitate what we like. And then, when we think of His grace in Christ Jesus, Do we not regard Him with love, with gratitude, with confidence? That's the way the fear of God should take. That's the appropriate way of looking at Him, thinking about Him, relating to Him. But it does translate into practice. And we see that in the words to walk in all His ways. In other words, the sort of life we live should reflect what He Himself is like. What are His ways? What does He do? We read further on in this chapter, for example, of His justice. He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow. And our life ought to reflect that. To love the stranger. Therefore, you love the strangers. The mercy of God. Jesus, when confronted by the scribes and Pharisees, on one occasion chided them for giving careful attention to detail. You tithe this and you tithe that. But you neglect the weighty matters of the law, justice and mercy. Our life then should reflect the justice and the mercy of God. It's not hard to discover the ways of God. We turn to the scriptures. We ask, Lord, show me yourself. We read what he is like, and then we walk in his ways. That's the second thing that the service of God consists in. Fear the Lord. walk in all His ways. The third thing is love Him. Now that's more than conduct. It's even more than a healthy regard for who He is. It's delight in Him for what He is like. Love the Lord your God. When we think about God, what do we know about Him? Do we say, I like that. I like that. I wouldn't want him to be any different. When we read about him, when it comes home on our spirit, who he is, are we almost overwhelmed at times and say, this is all I would want. Love the Lord. It's more than that, of course. that perception of Him, that delight in Him will also lead to an attachment to Him. Why did Jesus' disciples stay with Him for three years? Because what they saw they liked, they became attached to Him therefore. And it goes on to a desire to please Him. Jesus' words in the upper room in Jerusalem, the night of his betrayal, if anyone loves me, he will keep my commands. You see the connection between the two things? Fear the Lord, walk in all his ways, love him. And the fourth matter mentioned here is serve the Lord your God. The word serve is often used in scripture for worship. Worship them. A service, like we are taking part in, who are we serving? When we think about it, really, it is serving God. And we say to ourselves, what on earth does he get out of it? No, that's not the point. We are coming before Him. We are acknowledging Him. We are seeking His face. We are acknowledging Him by listening to Him. We are acknowledging Him by treating Him as the hearer of prayer. We are acknowledging Him by giving Him praise. We are acknowledging Him by joining with His people. It is an act of service. But serving the Lord your God cannot be confined to these acts of worship. These must reflect a worshipful spirit that shows in our way of life. Not just it shows in our way of life, but a worshipful spirit that shows in our way of life. Because we could say, right, God is God, here are the 10 commandments, I'll do my best to keep them. Serving the Lord your God is saying, I love the Lord. He deserves my best, always. But more than that, I owe my all to him. I am, in the words of the Apostle Paul, a bond servant of Jesus Christ. I serve him because I belong to him. Remember Paul, Mediterranean, on his way to Rome, the storm, and they think that all is lost. They've been fasting for days and so on. At last he calls the crew and he says to them, you ought to eat something because an angel of God, here it is, whose I am and whom I serve stood by me tonight. No one will be lost. You see, whose I am. The Christian belongs to God. Because we belong to Him. We serve Him. We are His servants. Think about it. Is the attitude, I make my choices, I have the right to do as I please, and actually, I choose to serve the Lord. Or is our attitude, Christ has bought me. I'm His willing slave. I can only do what he tells me. I have no authority to do anything else. You see, isn't that serving the Lord, a worshipful spirit? That's then reflected in our way of life. Obviously it's expressed in a life of obedience, Adam in his innocence in the Garden of Eden, the life after the exodus, after the Ten Commandments were given. It should have been a life of obedience because the Lord had bought them. And Paul in Romans chapter 12 refers to the fact that Christ has bought his people. And he says, I beseech you by the mercies of God that you offer yourselves as a living sacrifice. You see what God has done in His mercy? He's freed you from sin. He's bought you for Himself. Now then, serve Him. And that's only reasonable, isn't it? That we would serve the Lord our God. He is God, and He is our Maker, and He is our Redeemer. What could be more reasonable than serve Him? No doubt there's more than that. We are to promote His interests. That's part of serving Him. We are bought with a price. We're identified with Him. We have His name upon us, baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Surely we'll promote His interests. The parable of the pounds, the parable of the talents. It's all there. A God worth serving. and a God worth serving by spreading his mercy and truth among our fellow men. If that is a summary of what it means to serve God, the question arises, how should I do it? Is there any particular way in which I should do it? The answer is yes. We look at the end of verse 12 of Deuteronomy 10 and it says, with all your heart and with all your soul. Wholehearted. And Romans 12 verse 11 says, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. How should we serve Him? How should we do these things? Fear of God, walking in His ways, loving Him, serving Him. How should we do it? The answer is fervently, with our whole heart. It should well up from within us and it should be lively and vigorous. Now that's more than energy. It's more than determination. This is something because we want to do it. It comes from within the new heart. Someone might say, well, that's not something you can command, is it? The answer is yes, obviously, because he does. That's not the question. The question is, how do I get a heart to do what he commands? And this is the very heart of Christianity, is it not? It's not just a matter of ticking the boxes, doing the right things, that's part of it, but it's truly a matter of the heart, what we are at heart. Anything we do that is not what we are at heart is not sincere, it's not real, it's not accepted as genuine. Well, why would it be? God looks on the heart. Man looks on the outward appearance. So this is more than a label. It's more than a set of beliefs. Over history, there have been many parts of the Church of Christ where the only thing they had in common was the name. Where was the agreement and beliefs in the faith of Christ? Where was the common spirit of God? Again and again in history, we've seen cases where that just wasn't there. Or in the case of individuals, a name to live yet dead. For example, the beginning of Revelation, the Church of Ephesus, it was correct. but it was cold, lost its first love, and therefore the Lord said, I will remove the candlestick unless you repent. This is not emotionalism, but it does involve the whole person. It is from the heart. It's because of who we have become. And therefore we are involved totally. It's a spirit that prompts us to For example, go the second mile. In Jesus' words, give cheerfully. As we read in Romans 12, if your enemy hungers, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him drink. Thereby you will heap coals of fire on his head. The things that we would not do unless we did it from the heart. The spirit of Christ within prompting us and enabling us to do these things, fervent, wholehearted. The heart is in it. We think about the people of God in other times, the people that we read off in scripture, Abraham, for example. You read the life of Abraham, there's not a great deal you can find fault with, but that's not the point. Point is, what he did came from the heart. His faith, think of his faith. Called to leave out of the cold, he went out not knowing where he was going. He obeyed God. It came from within. He was wholehearted about it. And that faith led to remarkable things, did it not? Or what about job? Satan says, here is the most righteous man on earth. Yes, I'll show you he's not genuine. Because when you allow him to suffer, you'll see he's only doing these, no, only doing these things. He's only doing these things because of what he gets from you. If he doesn't get anything, he'll stop doing them. Not sincere. That was Satan's line. We read the book of Job, what are we struck by? Job's faithfulness. His faithfulness to God. All of these things happen to him, yet, He did not give up his covenant with God. It was from the heart. It was who he was. We think of Mary, the mother of Jesus. What obedience do we see there? Unparalleled in scripture. It came from the heart. The Apostle Paul, his willingness, not just what he suffered, but his willingness to suffer. Why? For the sake of the elect of God, to bring them in. It came from the heart. In a sense, this fervency of spirit is no more than sincerity. It's doing it not because we have to, not because we, want to say at the end of the day, it's done, but rather because we love the Lord. Fear of God is in our heart. We want to walk in his ways. We want to serve him. It is simply sincerity. And that is a reflection of the truth and the love of God himself. When you think about that fervency, which is in a sense, no more than sincerity, Does it strike us how different that is from the emphasis today on image and style? What matters so much to people is what image they present. What matters to God is what heart we have. And you know, although it is so counter-cultural, This is exactly what people are looking for. A major study was done two or three years ago, published not long ago, about attitudes to Christianity in Scotland. And included in that study was a breakdown of age groups. And the people, 25 to 35, that sort of age group, One of the characteristics was they were looking for authenticity, sincerity, just people being real. That's exactly what we've got here. It's not put on. It's not just doing it because we know it's right. There's that to it. But no, it's from the heart. It's because this is what we want to do. Be genuinely. Fear the Lord. Have a due regard to Him. We genuinely want to walk in His ways. We truly love Him. Therefore, we want to serve Him. Authentic Christianity. I, the Lord, search the heart. What wonderful words. And the echo should come from us. Search me, O God, and know my heart. The Book of Psalms, the Proverbs, They're full of such things. The desires, the hopes, the fears, the griefs, the consolations, all of these things have to do with what we are at heart. Not just our feelings include that, but what we are at heart. And that is the heart of Christianity. Jonathan Edwards, a great wise pastor and theologian in America in the mid 1700s said that in his view Christianity consisted largely in what he called holy affections and holy desires. That's the heart of it all. There is a prayer in scripture that we may well have been using and will continue to use or may begin to use, unite my heart that I may fear your name. Because no sooner do we think of Christianity as being largely a matter of the heart, what we are at heart, then we realize I'm like the man who came to Jesus. And Jesus said, do you believe I can do this for you? And poor soul, well, maybe not a poor soul. He answered, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. Do we relate to that? My heart goes one way, but then it goes another. Unite my heart that I may hear your name. If that is our prayer, be sure the Lord will answer it. All right, if that's the way we ought to fear the Lord, serve Him, love Him, walk in His ways with sincerity and fervency, how can we be motivated to do that? How can we become like that? How can we have the inner strength to be like that and to act like that? The answer we would instinctively give is, well, I must just try harder, mustn't I? Now that's not the answer scripture gives. Oh no. When we think about when Deuteronomy 10 was written, when those words were said, we realize those were people who knew the Lord had saved them. from Egypt, if from nothing else. Indeed, the Lord emphasizes this, verse 15. The Lord delighted only in your fathers. Yes, the heavens and the earth are his, but it was only in your fathers that the Lord delighted to love them. And he chose their descendants after them, above all his peoples. You, above all peoples. It's when we realize that the Lord has had mercy on us, that we are truly motivated and strengthened to serve him with our whole heart. The preface to the Ten Commandments shows that. Paul, in another part of the New Testament, says, he loved me and he gave himself for me. Doesn't that explain all that Paul became and did? And in Romans 12, I beseech you by the mercies of God. He's given a lengthy explanation of God's mercy and what God in his mercy has done for us in Christ. And then he says now, you've been blessed by that mercy. So I beseech you. This is the obvious thing to do now. This is the appropriate response. give yourselves as a living sacrifice to Him. That's the motivation. And that's where we get our strength. Holiness of God alone would make us afraid and it would make us ashamed of ourselves. But His mercy gives us confidence, especially when we have tasted it. Mercy gives us a sense of privilege. We marvel at this, that we are called Christian, that we are identified with Christ. What a privilege. And it's come about through His mercy alone. Mercy gives us a sense of confidence. We feel secure before Him. And as long as we do trust in His mercy, we will feel secure. Think, for example, of Isaiah. Remember that incident recorded in chapter six of his prophecy where Isaiah went into the temple and there he had a vision of the Son of God. The seraphim too were there crying, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is full of your glory. And so great was that vision, so overpowering was the glory of God that Isaiah saw that He could only cry out, Woe is me, I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips. I dwell among a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. He had seen the Holy One. That was his reaction. But, then, the Lord sent an angel to take something from the altar of sacrifice. You see? There had been sacrifice made for sin. And he carried this to Isaiah and he touched his lips with it. You say I'm a man of unclean lips. Right, here you are. The sacrifice has been made and it's applied to you. And then after that, the Lord could call him into his service and Isaiah could go. Holiness on its own makes us afraid and ashamed When we see mercy, it gives a sense of privilege and a sense of confidence and security. When the two go together, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. And we find ourselves motivated and we are strengthened when we think about what God has done for us in Christ. The Old Testament saints had, to some extent, a dim view of salvation. We marvel at what they did understand, but they had not yet seen the Christ or seen what he would do. They had pictures of it in the sacrifices and the priesthood. They understood a lot that way, but they hadn't actually seen it. But we, I've seen it. We have the record of it here. We've seen how Christ responds to the demoniacs, the Jairus who feels utterly broken as he's about to lose a family member, the friends who bring their needy ones to Jesus. We've seen how he searches for the lost, the woman of Samaria, the Levi's sitting at the receipt of custom, Those to whom he says, follow me, and we understand how he has put out sin away. We've seen it being done on the cross. We've seen the curtain of the temple torn apart. We have access now to God. We see the suffering that he endured for us, that it's done and done once for all and forever. And we know we have the promises and see the possibilities. Does that not motivate us? And does that not strengthen us? And so as we hold the cross of Christ before us and the promises that are made sure by it, we ask for the enabling of his own spirit. And we ask for it because we want to fear the Lord We want to love Him, we want to walk in His ways, we want to serve Him. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Some people read that as if it says, well at this very moment I can do all things but I feel I can't, I know I can't. But we really ought to read it as if it says, which it does, Christ can strengthen me. I will ask for his strength. And as he gives me the strength, I can do these things. Go and do it and you will get his strength as you do it. So enabled by his spirit, and motivated by the word of the gospel, we obey gladly instead of reluctantly. And we love God for who he is, even though at times we do not have feelings towards him. And we promote his cause even when we feel there's nothing that we can accomplish. He can do all things through us, and He can do all things in us. I beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. Amen. May God bless His word to us.