
What Does the Lord Require of You? 1. The Law Demands Perfection 2. The Gospel Declares, “It Is Finished”
- Albrecht…Trinity 17…Oct. 12th, 2025…Deut. 10:12-21…What Does the Lord Require of You?
12 “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, 13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good? 14 Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. 15 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. 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. 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. 18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. 19 Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. 20 You shall fear the LORD your God. You shall serve Him and hold fast to Him, and by His name you shall swear. 21 He is your praise. He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen.
May the peace of God’s forgiveness be with each of you, Amen.
INJ who was born under the law to redeem those who are under the law DFR:
There are very few opportunities in life than aren’t guarded by a requirement. You want to drive a car? You are required to have insurance and a valid driver’s license. You want to get a job? You might be required to be a certain age, or have a certain level of schooling/experience to qualify. I can even remember a time when I wasn’t allowed to use the riding lawn mower, because the seat had a weight censor, and anything under a certain weight, the mower wouldn’t run.
Most of the time, the requirements we run into are either for our benefit – like the mower having the weight censor was for my safety; or the requirements are in place by someone in a position of authority. Either they know better than we do what needs to be done, or by virtue of their position they get to decide that regardless of whether or not they are right.
This begs the question then, What Does God Require of Me? When we talk about bosses, God really should be number 1. He is the Divine author of this universe, of my very body and soul. And as the only source of absolute truth, He alone has the right to establish what should and should not be done. The Bible, which is God’s own will revealed to us, answers this question in two parts. Today we will consider, What Does God Require of You? 1. The Law Demands Perfection. But the Gospel declares Jesus has done it all.
May the Holy Spirit bless our study of His Word this morning. Let us pray: Sanctify us by Your truth, O Lord, Your Word is truth. Amen.
Deuteronomy literally means “second Law.” This book, written by Moses, served as a reminder to the Children of Israel of all the marvelous things the LORD had done for them since He brought them out of Egypt. It was important they remember it as the LORD would bless them if they did.
12 “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, 13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good? 14 Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.
See how Moses lays out the LORD’s requirements for His people. He begins first with the command, immediately followed by the reason the LORD can and should demand that requirement. In these verses, God’s requires the people to first fear Him. That doesn’t mean He wants His people to be afraid, but rather to hold the highest level of awe and respect towards Him because to God belongs all of creation, both heaven and earth.
The people must, “walk in all His ways, love Him, serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD.” This requirement can be summed up in what Moses tells the people in Leviticus 19:2, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.
This is the essence of God’s Law. It isn’t enough to “try your best,” or “do enough good to offset the bad.” No, God demands absolute perfection. When He calls His people to walk in all His ways, He means every letter of the 10 Commandments is to be fulfilled without one failure. To love God means to put Him above all else in your life, even higher than your own family, whom you can see with your eyes and love dearly.
To serve the LORD your God with all your heart and soul means that every aspect of your life is to be dedicated to Him. You don’t get an “off-time” to inherit the spirit of the world and let your tongue loose, your mind wander, or let your hands become the Devil’s workshop. What does the LORD your God require of you? Absolute holiness, every second of every day.
Picture God’s requirement of you as a perfect circle. A perfect circle is 100% perfection. In order to have a relationship with God, you must be a perfect circle. But every evil thought or desire, every curse that rolls off your tongue creates a jagged edge. Pretty soon, your life is full of jagged edges, nowhere near that perfect circle God demands. The Apostle Paul confesses for you when he writes in Romans 3:23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And don’t think that this isn’t fair of God. You sinned against Him. Sin is the missing of His standard as God over all.
God declared the result of anyone who failed to live up to His requirement by the Law. He said in Deuteronomy 27:26, ‘Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ Where did that leave the Children of Israel? Cursed. For they did not obey the Law of God, nor did they live up to His requirement. Where does that leave you and me? Cursed by our own sin under the Law of God.
What does the LORD require of you? The Law demands perfection. But this isn’t the only word God declares on the matter. The LORD God also says about Himself, The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. And so, we have, with God, His requirement for justice clashing with His desire to love, forgive, and save. Neither one goes away and neither one can go unsatisfied. Moses reminds the people of the love and forgiveness of God by recounting His great mercies towards them.
15 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. 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. 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. 18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. 19 Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
When the LORD made these requirements of His people, He knew they would fail to keep them. He knew how rebellious and stiff-necked they were; how stubborn in their sinfulness. Yet, Moses says, the LORD set His heart in love. Despite their failures, the LORD chose to love them and use them as the couriers of His mercy and salvation.
The LORD would be the one who looks down upon the lowly, the desperate, the weak, and lift them up. He established laws protecting the fatherless and the widow. He made sure the sojourner would be taken care of. Why? Because it is imagery of what He does for His people. The fatherless and the widow have no one to protect and care for them, the LORD would be their protector and provider. The sojourner has nothing to his name, but the LORD will give him freely food to eat and clothing to wear. It is as Isaiah says in 55:1,3, Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 3 Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.
God’s unending love towards the Children of Israel, despite their rebellion, was done with this everlasting covenant in mind. It is God’s covenant of Grace. God’s requirement for sinners needed to be satisfied, or else there was no hope for us to be reconciled to God. So, God sent Jesus in order to fulfill the Law’s requirement in our place.
The LORD sent Jesus to be born of a woman, born under the Law. This meant that when Jesus became human, He was under the same requirements to God as we are. Except, with Jesus, He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth (1 Peter 2:22). In every matter of God’s Law, Jesus did not stumble once. Instead, He actively kept God’s Law 100% perfectly. His life was that perfect circle of God’s holiness. Through faith, that perfect keeping of God’s Law is granted to you. Paul says in Romans 8:1, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
But it wasn’t enough for Christ to actively keep God’s Law in your place, He also must have passive obedience, that is, He must atone for all the jagged edges that separated us from God in the first place. His perfect life established righteousness for our future, but He also had to bury our past. This work of Christ shows God’s love most of all. In Corinthians Paul says, He [God] made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. And in Galatians 3:13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us– for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”–
These two passages are the essence of the Gospel. Sin separated us from God. It brought upon us the curse of eternal death and damnation. And that is what Jesus became for you. As He hung there on the cross and cried out, “My God, My God! Why have You forsaken Me?” Jesus was bearing your sin and your curse. He was suffering eternal damnation in your place so that God’s justice could be fully born out on Him and not on you. On Calvary’s cross, Jesus hung as the only sinner in the entire world. You, each and every single one of you, had your sins laid on Him, and He bore them in love for you to pay the price. Martin Luther describes it this way, “This is the mystery of the riches of divine grace for sinners; for by a wonderful exchange our sins are now not ours but Christ’s, and Christ’s righteousness is not Christ’s but ours.”
In death, Jesus buried your sins forever so that God remembers them no more. And in His resurrection from the dead, Christ Jesus assures you that your sins can haunt you no more. Rather, as we read in our Epistle Lesson this morning, 7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful. This is the Gospel of God: Jesus has done all God requires. By faith alone, this is your possession now and will be yours forever.
You can see why Moses ends this section with a verse of praise. How wonderful is the mercy and love of God who desires to give you an eternal inheritance with Him. 21 He is your praise. He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen.
What does the LORD require of you? Once more, hear the words of Martin Luther who summarizes it in this way, “One is not righteous who does much, but the one who, without work, believes much in Christ. The law says, ‘Do this,’ and it is never done. Grace says, ‘Believe in this,’ and everything is already done.” Amen.