“12 And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask 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 observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?
14 To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. 15 Yet the Lord set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and He chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today. 16 Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer.
17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. 18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. 19 And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt. 20 Fear the Lord your God and serve Him. Hold fast to Him and take your oaths in His name. 21 He is your praise; He is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes. 22 Your forefathers who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.
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“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the sight of God and all these witnesses…” So begins one of the few covenant cutting ceremonies that remain.
The covenant cutting ceremony for marriage is called a wedding. Like any covenant, it involves promises and a sign. The promises are the vows. The sign is the ring.
Married men and women display that ring as a sign of their agreement with their covenant. When I display my ring, I am affirming that I, Adam Eisenga, take Bethany Vannette, as my lawfully wedded wife. I display my covenant sign to proclaim that I am in covenant. I display my agreement with the promises.
Today, Ella is displaying her agreement with the promises. Profession of faith is a public statement that a child of the covenant as put on her baptism. She claims the promises of her baptism. She has claimed the forgiveness of sins. She has been reborn by the Holy Spirit. She is proclaiming that she is in covenant with God and that she wants to live that way just like my putting my wedding ring on proclaims that I am in covenant with Bethany and I want to live that way.
It isn’t enough for me to have a wedding ring. I must live by those promises. It isn’t enough for someone to be baptized. They must live by those promises. It isn’t enough for you to be baptized; you must put on your baptism. That is the claim of this sermon: it isn’t enough to be baptized; you must put on your baptism.
Baptism, like circumcision in the first covenant, is the mark of the relationship between God and His people just like a wedding ring is the mark of the relationship between a man and his wife. I put on my wedding ring to affirm that I am in covenant. Ella is professing her faith as an affirmation that she is in covenant. God is her God. She wants to live like one of His people.
God and His people comprise the two points of Moses’ words to that ancient congregation and those are our two points. What was true about the covenant marked by circumcision is true about the covenant marked by baptism. First: the God of the covenant. Second: the people of the covenant.
First: the covenant.
My relationship with my wife has a particular shape. It is a covenant. We aren’t simply friends. We aren’t simply parenting together. We are in covenant. Ella’s relationship with God has a particular shape. It is a covenant. That is the shape of the relationship between God and all His people.
The book of Deuteronomy explains this covenant. Different passages explain different aspects of the covenant – promises, obligations, consequences. Our passage explains the surprising nature of the covenant. Look at verse 14, “To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. Yet the Lord set His affection on your forefathers and loved them, and He chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today.”
The surprise of the covenant is that God chose Israel. As Moses had told the people, “The Lord did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.”
God could have chosen any people to be His own. He didn’t choose the most advanced of the most populous. He chose the fewest. He chose Abraham, who was unable to have children. You can’t get fewer than one.
There was nothing special about Abraham. He was worshipping the moon and stars like everyone around him. There was nothing special about Israel that led to God choosing them over others. They had no business being proud of being chosen. Rather they should have been surprised and grateful.
Os Guinness wrote about how being chosen can lead to pride. He wrote, ‘to be called is to hear God whisper three things to you in a hundred intimate ways – “you are chosen, you are gifted, you are special.” Let those three things sink in for longer than the first precious moments and you will inevitably hear another voice, honeyed and smooth: ‘yes, you really are chosen… gifted… special.’ All too soon, if you are anything like most of us, you will find yourself… saying to yourself – [never aloud, of course]: I’m chosen, I’m gifted. I must really be special. And before you know it, the wonder of calling has grown into the horror of conceit.”
Moses warned Israel against that conceited pride. If you are baptized, you need to be warned against that pride. If you have professed your faith, you have acknowledged that you have no reason for pride. You know that you weren’t chosen because you are different from the people of this world. You know that you are only different from the world because you were chosen.
Profession of faith is about God’s surprising choice. It isn’t about being perfect. It is about being amazed and humbled that God has chosen you. “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling, naked come to thee for dress, hopeless look to thee for grace, foul I to the fountain fly, wash me Savior, or I die.’
Moses explained the surprising nature of God’s choice to make covenant with Israel. He also explained that God keeps His covenant promises. You see this in verse 22, “Your forefathers who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.”
When God made His covenant with Abraham, He made a promise. Covenants have promises. My wedding ceremony was filled with promises. I made promises. Bethany made promises. God made promises to Abraham in that covenant and Abraham made promises to God. Abraham promised to trust and obey God. God promised Abraham that he would have more descendants than anyone could count. Abraham’s children would be more numerous than the stars in the sky was the way He put it.
Now you can’t count the stars in the sky. Try it tonight if it is clear. You might get to about fifty before you forget whether you’ve counted that particular star already. The stars are too numerous to count.
Moses made clear as he looked around that congregation that God had kept this covenant promise. “Your forefathers who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.”
God kept that promise despite the fact that He made it to a ninety-year-old man and his barren wife. God kept that promise despite the fact that those seventy people who fled famine were enslaved and abused for generations, which is not a recipe for rapid population growth. God kept that promise despite the fact that the parents of these men and women who were listening to Moses did not trust God’s promises. Moses made clear to these people who were too numerous to count that they were only too numerous to count because God had promised it.
If you want to live in God’s covenant, you must recognize that you live by God’s promises, not by bread alone but only by every promise that comes from God’s mouth. That is what Ella is declaring today. Just as Moses pointed back to that promise to Abraham and said, ‘now look at the reality today,’ so Ella is pointing back to promise of baptism and saying, ‘now look at the reality today. Look at the reality of the forgiveness of sins. Look at the reality of repentance. Look at the reality of rebirth by the Holy Spirit.’
If you are baptized and you haven’t professed your faith, consider what Moses has said. Consider God’s surprising choice to include you in His covenant. Consider the promises of God and how He cannot fail to keep them lest He be considered a liar, which He is most certainly not.
If you agree with these, it is only reasonable to give your total devotion to God. As Daniel Block put it, “although [the Lord] owns everything in the universe, out of all the peoples He chose Israel’s ancestors to be the object of His affection and love… In light of this gracious election, the call for total devotion… is utterly reasonable.”
If you grew up among God’s people, I hope you believe that God’s call for total devotion is utterly reasonable. I hope you believe that God’s surprising choice of you makes His call for your total devotion utterly reasonable. I hope you believe that God’s commitment to His promises which far outstrip any cost His commands might bring you make His call for your total devotion utterly reasonable. Consider professing that in the presence of God’s people.
Gracious election and unfailing promises are God’s part of this relationship. Now we turn to our part. That is our second point: the people of the covenant.
The people to whom Moses spoke were the people of the covenant. “The Lord set His affection on your forefathers and loved them, and He chose you, their descendants.” That congregation was part of the covenant because God’s promises to Abraham were for him and his children, this group of Israelites, just like Ella is part of the covenant because Christ’s promises to Gerry and Kandace are for them and their children. That’s why Israelite infant boys were circumcised and that’s why our infants are baptized. They are included in God’s covenant. They are the people of the covenant.
The people of the covenant must live like they are part of the covenant. As a married man in covenant I must live like a married man. Inclusion in the covenant comes with an obligation to the covenant. You see that in the covenant inclusion in verse 15 and the covenant obligation in verse 16, “the Lord set His affection on your forefathers and loved them, and He chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today. Circumcise your hearts, therefore…” The gracious inclusion was God’s surprising choice of Israel. The obligation was for Israel to live like they were chosen.
Moses told his listeners to live out their mark; “Circumcise your hearts.” Live out wedding ring; act like you are married. Live out your baptism. Today Ella is declaring that she is living out her baptism. She hasn’t simply been marked by baptism; she has baptized her heart. She hasn’t simply received the promises of forgiveness of sins and rebirth by the Spirit; she has embraced those promises. She doesn’t simply have the wedding ring in a box in her drawer; she is wearing it for everyone to see.
Now she isn’t merely doing that today. She will do that with her life. What William Toms said about Christians is true about her and every Christian, “You may be the only Bible some person ever reads.”
No one knew those Israelite men belonged to God because they saw their fleshly marks of circumcision; no one saw that. They saw their way of life. No random person at the Empire Mall in Sioux Falls will know that Ella belongs to Jesus because she was baptized. They won’t even know that she has professed her faith today. They will see her way of life.
Moses told the people to live a circumcised life. They lived such a life by living for God rather than for themselves. You see that in verse 16, “Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer.” To be stiff-necked is to be stubborn. To have a circumcised heart is to be pliable. You make yourself putty in God’s hands to do what He wants.
What does God want? If you are making yourself putty in someone’s hands, you should know what that person wants. What does God want? Verse 12, “now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask 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 observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?”
God wants you to love Him and revere Him for your own good. Manipulative people want you to be putty in their hands for their good. God wants you to be putty in His hands for your good.
Think about how good your life would be if you consistently obeyed the following commands, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”
God doesn’t command you to do that because He is on an ego-trip. Those commandments are for your good. Just look at someone who does repay evil for evil. Just look at someone who refuses to live at peace with people. You don’t want to live that way.
People who cringe at any talk of commands are like children who actually think that their loving parents are trying to destroy their lives. They aren’t seeing the situation clearly.
Being in covenant with God involves commands. That is the shape your relationship takes. Let’s look closer at the specifics of what the covenant requires of you in verses 12-13, “now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask 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 observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?”
People with circumcised hearts have a particular disposition. They love the Lord and they fear the Lord. That’s what Moses is saying.
Inspect yourself. Do you love the Lord? Jesus tells you how to inspect yourself in this matter by saying, “if you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
Loving Jesus and submitting to Jesus as Lord go together. Ella will publicly declare her love for the Lord when she says that she, “with repentance and joy embraces Jesus as Lord of her life.” You can’t love Jesus without living for Jesus.
Loving Jesus involves dealing with him as he is. It is an illusion if I love my own imaginations of my wife without dealing lovingly with my wife as she is. You can’t just say that you love Jesus and then not deal with him as he is and with what he has said, and what he has said involves life-directing commandments that are for your good. You love him by loving those commandments because they are for your good. You love him by listening and doing what he says.
Inspect yourself. Do you fear the Lord? “What does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God.” If you are truly dealing with God, you will have a healthy fear of God. You will have a disposition of reverence for the one you rightly consider Almighty.
Ella isn’t professing her faith in a divine teddy bear today. She isn’t professing her faith in a servile imaginary friend who only exists to make Ella feel better about Ella. She is professing her faith in the Father who made heaven and earth and who has been keeping her alive each day. She is professing her faith in the Son of God who claimed that all authority and heaven and earth belong to him. She is professing her faith in the Holy Spirit who brings mortals from death to life. She is professing her faith in a God who is to be worshipped because He deserves worship.
Profession of faith involves this seriousness. Don’t profess your faith because other people are doing it. Don’t profess your faith because anyone expects from you. Profess your faith because you are ready to publicly commit yourself not to perfection but to God who takes sin seriously enough to punish it with death and who loves you enough to suffer that death on your behalf.
Moses called Israel to this seriousness. He called them to this love. He also called them to exclusivity. You can freely insert the word ‘only’ all over the place in your interpretation of verses 20-21, “Fear the Lord your God and serve Him only. Hold fast to Him only and only take your oaths in His name. He alone is your praise; He alone is your God.”
Marriage has a proper exclusivity about it and so does your relationship with God. You don’t give anyone the same reverence you give God. You might think the world your earthly father and please rejoice if you have a father of whom you think highly, but if you have a choice of pleasing your father or pleasing God, there is no choice. “Fear the Lord your God and serve Him only.”
You might have a circle of friends upon whom you can depend for anything. Give thanks for that but know that God is even more reliable than they are. “Hold fast to Him only.”
You might find great delight in much of the glory this world has to offer, and it is good and right that you do. There is no wisdom in living as if this world was without wonders. Find much to praise in this life, but recognize that whatever fills you with awe is only a parable of God and the awe that He deserves. “He alone is your praise; He alone is your God.”
Ella is not just professing that her hope is in Christ. She is professing that her hope is in Christ alone. Ella is not just professing that she delights in Jesus. She is declaring that you can have all the world, but give her Jesus. She is declaring that the Lord alone is her God and she is one of His people.
That is what we declare. We declare it when we profess our faith. We declare it with our lives. We declare that there is nothing all that remarkable about us but there is a great deal that is remarkable about our God. We declare that we are unworthy and surprising choices for His love. We declare that His promises are faithful and that we wish we could be as faithful to Him as He is to us. We declare that we can do nothing other than live for Jesus because he, under no obligation, chose to die for us. We declare that we have been chosen and that is no cause for pride. It is cause for total devotion. It is cause for living out the mark of the covenant. Amen.