If you would, turn with me to the Book of Deuteronomy as we continue our journey through this particular book. We're looking at chapter 10, verse 14. I'm actually gonna read through chapter 11, verse 1. So chapter 10, 14 through 11, verse 1. Now I have to say, this text, as I was studying it this week, reminded me of a living, responsive reading. What do I mean by that? Responsive reading is one of those readings where the leader says something and then the congregation responds with the next portion of the reading. Well, in light of where these people are, Moses describes God and his actions as a leader reminding them of who God is and what he has done. And then each time he does that in this text, Then he describes how the people should respond with their lives, sort of like a living response to who God is. So with that in mind, look at this passage, beginning at verse 14, a reminder in chapter 10, verse 12, he had told them their requirements, to fear the Lord, to walk in his ways, to love him, to serve him with all your heart and all your soul. We pick it up in verse 14. as he continues his speech. 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 are 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, 70 persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven. You shall therefore love the Lord your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. As we consider this portion of God's word, let us bow briefly in prayer. Oh God, the descriptions of you are wonderful in this text. You are indeed the supreme God of all things. And yet, Lord, you have called a people unto yourself. What wonder, what glory, what grace. Father, we pray that the words we hear might be heard by ears that hear it and hearts that understand it. Lord, we pray that your spirit would be at work to apply these words to our lives. And I pray that anything that is said, done, or thought here inconsistent with your word or will may pass away, never to be heard from again. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Imagine this morning you were writing romantic poetry. Imagine, you men, that you are writing, describing your wife, and hopefully you're describing her as the model of all women in a myriad of ways. You might think of all kinds of words to express that love. One of my favorites of all time was when we had a church dinner in one of our churches and we encouraged men to read items of poetry that they had written in the past and one man described his wife at one point as effervescent. You see, love does to us things which cause us to ponder it, to think about it, to try and express it to the person that we love. And sometimes love is given with either the spoken or the unspoken phrase. Let me count the ways. Now we laugh at the description in scripture that Solomon gives in the Song of Songs when he describes a woman as things like a neck like the tower of ivory. He describes her nose and other features that we think are very strange because of the Hebrew idioms. And yet, What we describe when we love someone, describes how we are somewhat entranced by the love for another. And yet at the same time, we should be giving true descriptions of those to whom we are devoted. And Moses is doing this in a sense for the people of God and describing the people or the person to whom they should be devoted, that is the living God of the universe. You see time and time through this description, you see different descriptions of who God is, why we should submit to him, and why, of course, we should love him. And here it is, the people of Israel are given this awesome God and his grace, who made a covenant with them, and this is how they should respond. They should respond with commitment to him because he is the supreme God of election, because he is the supreme God of justice, and because he is the supreme God of glory. Verse 14 starts out in this way, behold. This word behold, some will translate it in other ways, but I like the word behold because in one sense, Moses is drawing attention to the people to ask them to behold something, that is to ponder something and to consider it. And this is what to there to consider. To the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. The first thing is he's describing to them that God is the owner of heaven and earth. And he said it in a poetic way, isn't it? To describe the heavens and the earth. This is a refrain throughout the scriptures and even adds another descriptive phrase, heaven of heavens. Now, what exactly that means, we don't even know. It's not a phrase that's used very much, but it's a reminder that it doesn't matter what it is, whether it's the sky above or the invisible heavens that we cannot see, whether it's the earth and all that is in it, God is the owner. All of this belongs to him. It's not as if one planet has a deed to one God and another planet has a deed to another God. There are no other gods. There is only one true God, the God of gods and Lord of lords, as we'll see later in this description. He is the owner of heaven and earth. And with that, the supreme God is also the God of election. Notice these two things put together. Verse 15, yet, a reminder, here he is, the most powerful being on the face of the earth, who owns all things, who is not a part of creation. He actually created these things. And then the word yet. Yet, or and. The Lord set his heart and love on your fathers and chose their offspring After them, you above all peoples as you are this day. Moses already reminded them, God chose them. We don't know why he chose them. They weren't the best. They weren't the most numerous. They weren't the most powerful. There wasn't something in them at all. It was because God loved them for some reason. And so this is the amazing election that he is talking about here. He says, the Lord loved your fathers. Again, it's a different word than is usually used for love here. In fact, it's actually two times expressed. One is a verb and one is a noun. It says something in the Hebrew like this. It says in a description here, it says that he loved for a loving. He loved them for a loving. In other words, it was to continue that relationship with them. It wasn't just static. He loves them once and that's it. It continues on. He loves them in order to keep on loving them. And this word for love has the idea of clinging to somebody, to loving them and holding on to them. And there's nothing that suggests there's a reason why he did this in our human logic. He just did this because he wanted to. And it says not only that he loved your fathers, but of course, as a reminder, what about them? Their fathers are long dead. He's referring particularly to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, those great patriarchs of time past. But he says, the Lord chose or elected their seed after them. In other words, you guys who are their descendants, the Lord chose you too. It wasn't just, hey, I love Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and everybody else, forget it. No, it's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and those that follow them, these are God's people. Amazing election. The God of heaven and earth. These things belong to him. This God, of all things, chose to love a people for himself. So what should we do? What should the Israelites do? Here's what it says. Circumcise, therefore, the foreskin of your heart and be no longer stubborn. Now the word here for circumcise is, of course, in that passive tense, it's the idea, let yourself be circumcised. And of course, what are they to have circumcised? Of course, they probably recognize at some point in their history especially as they've wandered the desert and they come into this land, many of them have not been literally circumcised. This is something that will happen when they first go into the promised land as they renew that covenant with the Lord. And yet here he's not talking about that physical act. He's talking about the spiritual necessity of being set apart and removing the impurities that cause you to be unable to stand before a holy God. The illustration of this was already given by Moses and his family himself. When Moses was called to lead the people out of Egypt and they went on the way to go to Egypt, his sons were not circumcised and the Lord stopped him and threatened to kill him and somehow his wife knew that the problem was circumcision and so she had on the spot circumcised the two boys. and God let the family pass. You see, we must, approaching the holy God, remove the things that are unholy or cause impurity. And notice what it says here, of the foreskin of your heart. In other words, yes, circumcision is a physical and bloody right. It's a sign of God's calling upon the people of Israel. It was a covenant for them. It's not something that we necessarily are under anymore because now we have baptism that marks us as God's people and not circumcision. And yet here, is a reminder of the necessity to put away those things that cause us to be impure. And he associates that with this last phrase, be no longer stubborn. Literally, you will not harden your neck still or again. They're stiff-necked, stubborn people. And God has been reminded of this time and time again throughout their journey through the desert. They've complained, they've rebelled, they've done all kinds of things to demonstrate their unworthiness. And God here, through Moses, is reminding them, I love you. Become holy as I am holy. Many years ago, there was a board that determined what could be produced in movies. Movie directors, as you know, nearly always have much more material than you actually see after its production. In fact, on some movies, you can find clips somewhere on the internet that says these are the uncut scenes that you haven't seen in your version of the movie. They cut the material that either distracts from the plot or maybe material that may be deemed offensive or distracting In other words, they want their movie to be entertaining and understandable. But in the old days, there was a board. It was a moral board, and that particular board would ask the producers, in order to be able to show their movies in the theaters, to cut language and innuendo that would be offensive. Now, of course, today, people call that censorship. But in those days it was called basically having a society and community together that has high values and standards when it comes to entertaining the masses. And here it is. This is what has to be done. Just as certain scenes or certain words or certain things had to be cut in order not to offend the populace in those days back in the 50s and earlier, So now today, as we read God's word, what does God want from us? to cut off those things that cause us to sin, to cut off those things that are unholy. This is, after all, what it means to repent. To repent means to stop doing those things and to start then, as we turn to God and ask for forgiveness, then to start doing things that please God. So that circumcision of the heart there is to remove the impurity to recognize our need for God's grace, and then to understand as this supreme God has chosen to give you this grace, then to no longer be stiff-necked and stubborn people, but those who respond in holiness, to follow the Lord's way, to walk in his ways, to love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and so forth. So here, what is the people of God, what is the people of God supposed to do? They're supposed to recognize God's supreme being, and then they're supposed to respond in kind with recognizing that he is holy and we want to be like him. But he's not only the God of election, he's also the God of justice. Again, here's this. Back and forth, here's what God is like, here's what you are to do in response. So here it says, the next phrase here in verse 17, 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. First of all, notice this, he is the supreme God and the supreme Lord. Hebrew doesn't have these superlatives as the same way that we do. So this is an expression to say he is the one supreme God. It's not giving credence to the idea that there are other gods. It's just recognizing he is the supreme God using the language that the Hebrew language is able to produce here. He is the supreme God. In other words, he is God, the absolute God of everything. He's also the supreme Lord. And of course, Lord here means master, particularly referring to kings in those days. In other places of scripture, like we read in Revelation earlier, king of kings. This idea here is, it's not saying that there is a recognized authority, that there are all these other kings that are just as wonderful as God. No, there's one supreme king over everything. One supreme Lord. Notice what else it says, he's great. Now, we say that word all the time. It loses its meaning. But the idea of being great is that there's something special and more important and wonderful and lovely and all those things. He is great. He's mighty. This is the word I like to translate in my own personal translation from the Hebrew, the word hero. David had these mighty men later on in the history of Israel. This is that same word for manly men or heroes. He is mighty in that sense. He is a warrior. He is powerful. Because of that, he's also being feared. That's the literal idea of the awesome nature of God. Again, a word we use in so many, perhaps, just ways in which we lose the meaning of the word awesome. Awesome here is literally being feared, reverenced. In other words, God has a terrifying aspect about him, so that when people come to him, they are cowed, they are humbled, they recognize their unworthiness before him. And he is awesome in that sense. But the other thing that's described here is the fact that God is impartial. In fact, literally, the idea here is he's no lifter of faces. In other words, he doesn't go out into the group in a courtroom and say, you know, here, I'll get your chin up and lift your face. By the way, I think you're more important than this person over here. or I'm gonna give you more leeway than I give this person over here. No, he's not like that. He's no lifter of faces, he's impartial. He doesn't exhibit justice in a sense where some groups or some individuals have favoritism. He will also not take a bribe. We should all hear that because sometimes we like to bribe him. Lord, if I do such and such, then you'll bless me, right? He's no taker of bribes. He's no lifter of faces. He's impartial. In fact, the kind of justice he gives is justice that includes mercy. He has justice for the orphan, the widow, and the alien or sojourner. And then not only does he give justice to them, But it says particularly here for this alien or sojourner, he gives also to them food and clothing, provision. He gives justice for these individuals and provisions for them. Why does it indicate this trio of individuals? This is a trio that's given throughout the Old Testament, isn't it? The orphan, the widow and the alien. Why does he point those out? Well, because they're the most vulnerable. They're the lowest in society. They're the ones who didn't have a father to care for them, who didn't have a husband to be the man of honor in the city gates. This is someone who is an outsider who's come in and they're totally reliant upon the grace and mercy of the community. Here it is. These are the most vulnerable, some of them without many rights or privileges. In fact, especially for the widow, the woman in their society were not even considered, these women were not even considered reliable witnesses in court. And so here it is, he's protecting the vulnerable, giving justice to them when society around them would consider the vulnerable unworthy of such things. In our society, it seems like an alien phrase to us to think that not everyone, despite their background or situation, is created equal and has all these rights. But that was the case in many societies and still is today in many places around the world. And yet God is impartial. His justice is true. And he has mercy. So how do we respond to that? 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. First of all, love the alien. I like to use the word alien because it does have certain connotations, doesn't it? Love the alien since you were one. Think about your history. When you were down in Egypt, how were you treated? They were treated like slaves. They had no rights, they had no privileges. Their bosses could not only fire them on the spot, but he could imprison them, or in certain circumstances, kill them on the spot. They had no rights, no privileges. The people in Egypt didn't necessarily care whether or not the Israelites lived or died, succeeded or failed, or anything. And here it is, remember that situation. So then you treat those amongst you differently. Love them. In fact, here's how you begin to love them is because of the way you react with God. You shall fear the Lord your God and serve him. In other words, if you fear a God of justice and mercy, then your life will start to exhibit true justice and mercy. And then here it is, what else? It says not only should you fear God and serve God, it says you shall hold fast to him. This is the idea of clinging, cling to the Lord. In fact, this is the very same word that's used in Genesis 2.24 about Adam and Eve and the institution of marriage. Therefore, a man shall leave his mother and father and he shall cleave or cling to his wife. In other words, this relationship of the people of God with the God that has made this covenant with them is such that it is the same thing in an intimate relationship as a marriage. In other words, as Moses is saying, it's like you're married to God. You cling to him and therefore when you swear, this isn't swearing like saying bad words. This is making oaths or vows. When you swear, you don't swear by your mother's grave. You don't swear by the blood of your own body. You swear by the name of the Lord. He is the only one who is certain and true and everlasting and never changes. And when you swear by him, it is an oath that cannot or should not ever be broken. So in other words, because God is a God of justice and impartiality and mercy, so we should respond in kind to be like him. Now, I'm not going to get into all the alien debate of our current society and whether illegal aliens who have broken the law to come into our country should have one thing or another done. That's not necessarily the purpose of this particular passage. But I will express to you something I have heard from those who patrol the border. Those who patrol the border are not only out there to keep those Folks from other countries illegally out of our country. They perform a great number of humanitarian purposes. They rescue people on almost a daily basis from drowning in the Rio Grande. From those who would take advantage of them. In fact, some of those patrol officers will tell you the reason they took the job was to protect those coming into our country. And not only that, when they gather these individuals, whether they're retaining them or whatever they're doing with them, because of our society and because of the influence of Christianity on our society, one of the first things they do is they feed them and they clothe them. We forget that about the way we do things in our society. Whatever you think about the political issues of the day and all those political ramifications of those things, the first thing we do is we house them, we feed them, we clothe them. And then what else do they do? They seek to protect the vulnerable. One of the things that we've heard, hopefully, is the number of women and children who are victims coming into our country. Many of them have been raped and pillaged along the way. Many of them have been stolen and kidnapped from their families. Many of them are going to be sold into slavery even for the benefit of people in places like Myrtle Beach. And here it is. What is it that we're supposed to do as Christians for the vulnerable? Well, the first thing we're not going to do is go up there and say, hey, you're a terrible person. You shouldn't even be here and all those. And first thing, we should look after their needs. We clothe them. We feed them. We love them. Now, we know the way that we love them may look different than the way other people think that we should love them. One of the ways in which we should love an illegal alien is to help them through the process of becoming legal, for example. The way we show love to somebody else is the kind of ways in which God has shown love for his people. It's fair and just treatment sprinkled with mercy. You see, what should we support as believers in the public sphere? We should support justice and mercy, not one or the other, but both. And we should seek to do that not just on a governmental basis, but on an individual basis. We show justice and mercy. Why? Because here is God. He is your praise or your glory. This isn't the normal word for glory, but it can be interpreted that way. This is the word for praise. This idea of worship or praise or giving glory to someone else. And this is a reminder. That Moses is giving to the people, you're not worthy of praise, God is worthy of praise. Moses already told them, there's no reason you can come into the land and enjoy all the benefits, the milk and the honey and all the things, the fortified cities and everything. You can't come in there and enjoy that and say, look, look at how wonderful I am. Look at how much I deserve this. Look at how privileged I have been and how wonderful I am. And look, it's all because I got there. No, it isn't. Because God has done this. God is the one who rained the plagues down on the Egyptians. God is the one who provided them, for them, manna in the desert. God is the one who led the armies so that in one battle, as long as Moses had his arms held high, then they won the battle. What kind of strange thing is that? It's because God did it. And they're eyewitnesses to his great and fearful actions. Notice what it says. He is your God who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen. You've seen it. And then verse 22 says this, your fathers went down to Egypt, 70 people. Now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven. This is that great star promise. When God said to Abraham, look out here from your tent and look out at the sky and see if you can count the stars. You ever tried to do that? I hope you have. You get lost at some point, especially now in a place where it's very lighted, a city, it's hard to do that. But when you're out in the country and you're out there and you've got this sky that's wide open with no clouds and you look at the sky and you see all the stars and here it is, you can't possibly count them all. He says, here. He has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven. In other words, God is the promise keeper. He's the keeper of that star promise. So why is Moses telling them this? He's told them that he is the supreme God and he chose them and so then they should be circumcised apart. Now he's told them he's the God of justice and he says, you too should be a people of justice and mercy. Now he says, he's the God of glory. He's your praise. How should they respond? Verse one, very similar to chapter 10, verse 12. You shall therefore do what? Love the Lord your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. In other words, love God and keep his commandments. Keep his covenant. This is all in the context of the covenant making God. God of all the people of the earth, he gave them the covenant, the reference of the covenant in circumcision here. He is the God of the covenant with the sign that you are his people. And now here, the praise of glory as they think of the law, this is the covenant that God made with them contained in the mosaic phase of this particular covenant is the law of God. But you know, I think sometimes we're like those athletes that we hear about that can be so good, they can be so great at what they do. And I remember in my youth, Ricky Henderson, when he stole third base and broke the all time stolen base record and he held up the base in the air and he said, I am the greatest. Who raised Mr. Henderson? Who fed Mr. Henderson? Who paid Mr. Henderson? Who helped train him? Who, in essence, was around him on those lineups to help him succeed? Who were the coaches in his life? Who were all these individuals? Who gave him these talents to begin with? God is his praise. You see, God is our praise always. He has acted on our behalf. He has kept his word. And therefore we should love him and keep his covenant. Why? Because he is faithful and he has worked on our behalf. He has chosen us. If we are in Christ Jesus, he has chosen us for no good reason. There's nothing good in you that suggests you should have been one of his people. And yet here we are. The conclusion of this people have gone from 70 to a multitude. who have gone from slavery and bondage to now free landowners, to those who have been wandering in the desert for 40 years, to those who are about to have established communities, from those who have been oppressed with no rights, no privileges, to those who are conquerors. The Lord is your praise. The supreme God of the universe chose us. loved us, provided for us, gave us his own son to purchase our salvation on the cross, is even now at the right hand of God the Father Almighty interceding on our behalf. He is our praise. He is our glory. He is our God. And he is our justice. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for who you are. We thank you, triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit, for all that you have done, all that you are. And Lord, we just praise you. We worship you. Help us to serve you, to love you with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And Lord, help us. Help us to have our hearts circumcised by your Holy Spirit, to turn from our sin, and to walk with you. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.