Adoration of God
Sermon by CH(CPT) Keith J. Andrews
All scripture marked ESV: The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.
This morning we turn to the book of Deuteronomy 10 and verse 12.
The verse reads:
“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, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, (Dt 10:12, ESV)
We read in this verse the writings of Moses as he recounts the story of receiving the second set of tablets containing the Ten Commandments.
The Israelites had just crossed the Red Sea, approached Mount Sinai, Moses met with God and received the first Tablets. At the same time Moses was meeting with God, the Israelites started to worship a calf! When Moses returned, he broke these tablets. Moses prayed for forty days and nights to prevent God from destroying these people.
At the end of Moses this time, God tells Moses in verse 11:
And the Lord said to me, "Arise, go on your journey at the head of the people, so that they may go in and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give them." (Dt 10:11, ESV)
And Moses speaks to the people:
He says "What does the Lord your God require of you, but to...love him..."
It is very clear that Bible teaches us to love the Lord.
The Israelittes were quick to follow the golden calf. But, the Lord desires us to love him. And love him alone.
1. God requires of us a simple devotion.
We hear so much about the love of God for us. How he gave his life for us and if we trust him we can live forever with him. We love to talk about how wonderful it is to have a God who loves us. And we focus on that—when we do we miss the point it is we who should love him. He is the God of the universe. I praise him for loving us—I am grateful that he loves us—but let us not forget our piece of this puzzle to love him. This is the simple requirement to love him.
In Matthew 22:37 Jesus reminds us of Deuteronomy 6:5 when he tells his disciples that the greatest commandment is to:
“…love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Mt 22:37, ESV)
It is a very simple requirement to love him. When we stack all of the religions in a room—many will say for us to do this or do that to win favor. But, God says that we already have favor with him—he just desires that we love him.
In this very simple statement of the obvious, God says to us—"What does the Lord your God require of you, but to...love him..." A simple statement to place your love in God to avoid the idols of this world and to love him.
Money is an idol of this world. We idolize money. We idolize things that money can buy. We idolize the lifestyle that is fueled by money.
Jesus says in Matthew 6:24:
24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." (Mt 6:24, ESV)
We must turn our complete attention to God and loving him. Understand the difference between having money and saving for the future and being controlled by money.
This is one of the issues of credit card debt. We buy things we can not afford on an account we can’t pay off. I recommend that you take this opportunity during your deployment here in Iraq to pay off some of this debt.
We are to serve the Lord and love him alone.
Matthew 16:24 reads
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? (Mt 16:24, ESV)
We need to learn the lesson of Christ, who gave all because of his love for us on how we should love our Lord God. There is no other that we are to follow but the Lord.
I hear people talk about there being many ways to God—if that were so, why would God be so angry when we chose another way.
God speaks these words, through Moses:
Deuteronomy 5:7-10;
“ ‘You shall have no other gods before me.
8“ ‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9 You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Dt. 5:7-10, ESV)
God is a jealous God! He desires that we follow him and him alone. This is not some game that we play with words, but the very words of the Lord our God.
We are to love the Lord our God and forsake all others.
These are probably the verse in which we as a nation want removed from our courthouses—we have no problem with “You shall not steal” or “You shall not murder.” But “You shall have no other gods before me?” That we have a problem with.
We are not to be controlled by the idols of this world, but by our love of God.
We are to leave all of the idols of this world and love God alone.
2. While God requires a simple devotion, this love is not completely an emotional love. It is a love to be acted upon. What we see that the love here is commanded, but has nothing to do with feeling.
You can not require feeling. God knows this. He created us. He placed the tree of life in the garden to give us a choice to love him or not. But, the Bible says "What does the Lord your God require of you, but to...love him..." This must means that love is something other than pure emotion.
We must love him with all heart soul and mind, Jesus says. Regardless of how we feel about this issue—it is required of us to love him.
Ephesians 5:25 says:
"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;" Eph. 5:25, ESV)
This is not a command of emotion, this is a command of action. Husbands are to love their wives and give their lives for them. It really doesn’t matter if you are an ocean away from her. It really doesn’t matter if she has the check book all messed up. It really doesn’t matter if you are having communication issues. We are to love our wives, period.
We have a misunderstanding of love. People say, we are getting married because "we love each other." We are getting divorced because "we don’t love each other any more." We don’t have a choice whether or not to love or not love our spouse. When we vowed to become the wife or the husband, we committed to love them. It is more than simple emotion. We are committed to love them, regardless of what the outcome of our emotions are.
The same is true of our Heavenly Father. It really doesn’t matter what you feel. Of course, it helps if there is some emotion, some excitement, and some spirit within you that celebrate your love for him—but we are required to love him, no matter what.
Again, it doesn’t matter if things are going bad for you today. It really doesn’t matter if you are in a desert spiritually and don’t know where else to turn. It doesn’t matter if the Lord’s people in the Church have hurt you. We are still required to love the Lord.
The emotions will follow, and they may strengthen our resolve, but we are to love the Lord. Loving him is not an option that you accept if you feel like on a particular day. Loving him is a commitment, and a discipline, to put him first in your life.
So how do we love God, if it is required and not emotional what shall we do?
Chapter 13 verse 4 explains that you,
3. Love God through walking after the Lord.
Look with me at Deuteronomy 13:4:
4 You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. (Dt 13:1-4, ESV)
If we are to love the Lord, we are to follow him. This is how we demonstrate our love to him my following him, by walking after the Lord.
The interesting thing that I see about this verse is that it completes the rest of the verse in we are focusing today.
Deuteronomy 10:12 says
“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but it fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, (Dt 10:12, ESV)
This is what we need to do, we need to follow the Lord, in order that we show our love to him. With all of our hearts and souls and our minds—we are follow him.
So, I our prayer life, what does it mean to love him or adore him.
We are to proclaim our love to him
Psalm 22:22 says
22 I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you: (Ps 22:22, ESV)
We are to commit our way to him
Psalm 37:5 says
"Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act." (PS 37:5, ESV)
We are to submit to him, and his will, his desires, and his commands. We are to remember the words of Jesus in the Lord’s Prayer and pray:
"Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." (Mt 6:10, ESV)
We are to pray differently, when we are praying through the command to love—we are to put him first before ourselves. And yield ourselves to the spirit to move within us.
This is what it means to act on our love for him.
We too often hear messages on the love of God. We hear, some times it is what we need to hear. It is important that we know that God loves us, that he died in our place because of his love for us, and that he seeks to help us through this life because he loves us.
But, of equal importance we need to be reminded of our need to love him. No matter what is going on. We need to love him.
It is hard when there are Soldier’s being injured, parent’s passing away, and spouses leaving their husbands to understand that we are to respond to the Lord with love—regardless of the circumstance. But, it is God’s requirement of us to love him.
It is not an emotion, but a response. And Loving God is carried out through walking daily with the Lord.
Do you love him this morning? I don’t mean simply believe in him. I don’t even mean that you love the church—their are a lot of people that love to feel like they are religious and, therefore love the church. I mean do you love the Lord?
You have an opportunity to respond to the command to love God. The first step to loving God is to accept him as your payment for your sin. We are all sinners and, therefore, doomed to pay the penalty of death. But, God loved us enough that he sent his son to die on a cross in our place so that the payment would be paid and our eternal life would be secure.
This is the first step in loving God—that is to accept him and what he has done for us.
Then we serve him, acting on our love through the rest of our life.
I challenge you today to love the Lord "with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." and serve him today.
