Psalm 40, 54; Deut. 10:12-22; Heb. 4:11-16; John 3:22-36
What the Lord requires sounds daunting. "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, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good?” That is some kind of list! If my wife required all that from me before we got married I am not at all sure that I would say yes to that. Moses, however, goes back and reminds them that this same God created and has available to Him everything in the universe and for some inexplicable reason chose this people for His treasured possession to protect, bless and love. God’s greatness and goodness go before Him, we do not love and serve and abstract deity, we love and serve the God who chose us and loves us and who extended Himself on our behalf.
John shows that, in contrast to Nicodemus, he understands the things of heaven. He is fit to see God’s kingdom. He has realized two important things, it isn’t about him and it is about Jesus. He acknowledges that all that he has, all he has done, come from heaven, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.” We have spent a great deal of time in our churches over the past fifty years trying to work out how to have growing churches and yet John here says that the only thing that truly matters to God is faithfulness to the mission and message. It is our desire to see the kingdom grown and see God move, but it has to be for His glory rather than our own. We must always seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. John got it right.
Jesus did that which Moses said God commanded. All that he said was required of God’s people, Jesus did flawlessly. He feared the LORD His God, walked in all His ways, loved Him, served the LORD His God with all His heart and with all His soul, and kept the commandments and statutes of the LORD. He did all these things without fail, all the time. In doing so, He made it possible for us to enter His rest by faith. In our worship I say: we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; mosthumbly beseeching thee to grant that, by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, we, and all thy whole Church, may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion.” We benefit from Jesus’ passion because we agree with the Father and with all of heaven that because He did all things perfectly according to the Father’s will He is worthy of praise.
O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
All are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!
O may Thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
And win with them the victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia, Alleluia!
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