God’s Word in Your Heart (Deut. 30:1-20)
We will share the grace of God’s Word today with Deut. 30. Deut. is the content Moses gave as a sermon to the future generations. In previous chapters as well, he has continuously been explaining about blessings and curses. If we are proper Christians, there are blessings God has rightfully given to His children. There are people who receive these blessings and people who lose hold of them. The standard of that is our faith regarding God.
How can we know God? Whatever I think is God is not God Himself. No one can know God but God reveals Himself through the words of the Bible. The most important thing is to know and believe God accurately. There are people who go to church but imagine the god they want; that is not God, that is what we call an idol. There are some people who believe in something nonsensical or unrealistic. That is not God; that is just their own unrealistic thoughts. God reveals Himself through His Word, so if you’re able to accurately believe in and know who God is through the Word, you will receive His blessing.
Despite the fact that the first generation received salvation and escaped from Egypt, they did not believe in God for 40 years; they believed in a god they wanted and lived the lives they wanted. What is sin? It is living however I desire, in other words, sin means that I have placed myself as God. Even as people go to church, they live however they want; they will never receive answers from God.
God fulfills the Word He promised to us. The times the Israelites were destroyed were when they were ignorant of God. Do you think the Israelites were destroyed because they didn’t know the law? They did know the law but they didn’t know the law from the perspective with which God wanted them to know it. God gave them the law in order to give them the correct faith about who God is, but they thought they had to keep the law well physically.
Instead of having any kind of love for God in their hearts, they thought the point of their walk of faith was to act righteously with the law. Yes, as we go to church, there are things we need to do, but we must do all of that by receiving God’s grace and love. If you think that by doing things for the church, you gain something for yourself, that’s an exhausting walk of faith. That is why in Matt. 11:28, Jesus Christ said, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened,” because for the Israelites who try to follow the law by themselves, they’re burdened.
Some people fail because they don’t know the Word of God, and other people know the Word of God, but they didn’t know the Word of God accurately, they interpreted it as they wanted. So, if you listen to what I’ve told you in the introduction just now, as we read through these verses, you’ll understand what this means.
Deut. 30:1, “When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you,” they do not come from within me; it means they come upon me from somewhere else. You take them to heart, wherever the LORD your God disperses you among the nations, meaning wherever you are scattered by God, or dragged by Satan. If we don’t want to have God’s Word in our heart, we will actually be dragged where we don’t want to go, but we are dragged there in the midst of suffering. This person left God’s Word because they thought it would be a benefit to themselves, but it turns out to be a disaster.
They thought, “Whatever I’m thinking is to my benefit,” and they race forward with their lives, but they leave God behind. This is talking about, not living for God’s Word or by God’s Word; but instead, living for myself, then even though I race so diligently in life, I become further and further from God’s blessing. We are going forward, thinking this is for our benefit and success, but we are dragged by Satan into suffering and death.
When you have been dragged off, you’ll remember the words God has given you about blessings and curses, so first, it is important for you to hear God’s Word because if you don’t hear God’s Word ever, you won’t remember it. But even that memory of God’s Word is by the work of the Holy Spirit. I didn’t know this at all, but when God sees that this person is at the brink of destruction, He will pull them back. That’s when this person remembers the words they heard long ago.
In Deut. 30:2, “and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today,” once you remember God’s Word and covenant and believe with your entire heart, “This is the Word I must follow,” then with all of your heart and all your soul means you are not in so much suffering that you’re forced to follow God’s Word, but you truly believe with all your heart and mind that you really need to follow God’s covenant.
In Deut. 30:3, “then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where He scattered you.” It means that when you truly believe that the covenant is true and you want to hold onto the covenant with all your heart, He will set you free by giving you compassion and mercy. For us, it doesn’t matter how much suffering we’re in, we don’t turn to God because of that suffering; God gives us grace to turn back. Unbelievers don’t have that grace at all but we do have that grace. Even the fact that you’re worshiping today is impossible without God’s grace.
You think you’re only here because you have time but that’s not the case. You would not be able to come to worship if you got into a car accident. God has allowed you to be here. I did not come here; God brought me here. If you were on drugs and hospitalized, you wouldn’t be able to be here. It means that God has allowed you to be here by His grace. If you’re not able to understand these words, you’ll be able to understand them later. Worship is not something I can do just because I want to be here; I can only come to worship if I’m within God’s grace that allows me to be here.
Even right now, people who are mentally afflicted are not able to hold onto Jesus Christ. Even if they’re in the midst of alcohol and drug addiction, they cannot hold onto Jesus Christ. They are only able to be corrected if God gives them that grace. That is what a human being is like. That is why it’s important for God to have compassion on us. During this week’s pulpit message, Jesus Christ was looking out into the field and He had mercy on them, that’s what’s important.
Deut. 30:5, “He will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it,” meaning you will be brought back to the land of the covenant. God gave the land of Canaan to Abraham and gave him the covenant, “Stay here and wait for the Messiah and do world evangelization from here,” but you’ve forgotten the covenant and suffer. God will restore you and return you to prosperity. The covenant God promised to Abraham gets fulfilled the same way to the future descendants. Once you restore that covenant, God will bless you exactly as He had promised.
Deut. 30:6 says, “The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants so that you may love Him with all your heart and all your soul and live.” Circumcising your hearts refers to cutting off the foreskin of the males in Genesis, but it also has its own meaning. The Jewish people would circumcise their boys eight days after the boys are born, and when God told the Israelites to circumcise the boys, there is a reason and meaning behind that. But the Israelites had lost hold of that meaning; they were just doing circumcision as an act. Because God said, “If you do not circumcise your children, you will be separated from God,” so without thinking of the meaning, they just circumcised them.
Even with the Ten Commandments, there was an intent that God had, but the Israelites just kept the law physically. They didn’t think about the meaning of it in their hearts; “We just have to keep the law in action.” That is why Jesus Christ looked at the Pharisees and said they were whitewashed tombs, so they are painted well on the outside but inside, they are decaying corpses. Circumcision represents a physical death and God told the Israelites to circumcise their children, but the Israelites were under a misconception, that if they carry out the physical act of circumcising and they are children of Abraham, they are okay. Males are circumcised physically but Moses talks about the circumcision of the heart, meaning, I acknowledge I’m dead but by the blood covenant, I am a new creation.
When do we get the circumcision of our hearts? Jeremiah 31:32-33 talks about this, “It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers,” meaning the covenant God made with them in the Old Testament, “when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. Then in Jer. 31:33, it talks about the new covenant He will make with them.
It means that even though they did physical circumcision, they didn’t have faith in their hearts, so God says, “This is not working.” “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be My people.” This is what happens after Jesus Christ came to earth. Jeremiah was a prophet so God gave him the Word about what would happen in the future, and this talks about what happens after the incident of Jesus Christ’s cross.
In Col. 2:11-12, “In him,” meaning in Christ, “you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men,” as they used to, “but with the circumcision done by Christ.” The sinful nature means the nature we have to live as our own masters. The new circumcision within Jesus Christ means I am now dead and Christ lives in me, towards and for God. It is the spirit of Jesus Christ coming into my heart that brings about the circumcision of the heart. This doesn’t mean you blindly accept the Holy Spirit. You have to accept the Holy Spirit knowing the meaning of the cross.
If you’re told to just blindly accept, you don’t know if you’re accepting a demon or something else. You need to correctly know the work Jesus Christ has done on the cross and your relationship to that work. Now that you’re a new being, accept Jesus Christ. The “me” that lived as my own god with my own standards has died on the cross; now I live with Jesus Christ as my standard; that is new life and salvation.
This Holy Spirit now lives within me and I live following His guidance and His word, but why is it so hard to receive that guidance? It’s because the “me” that died keeps coming back to life. The way of life I’ve lived for a long time before I knew Jesus Christ keeps coming back, that is why we need to continuously hold onto the covenant of the cross of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit lives within us and is now reminding us and teaching us of that.
We must be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. That’s what it means for us to worship in spirit and in truth. We do not worship with our mental strength or intelligence. Just sitting here is not worship, but through the words God gives to the messenger, the Holy Spirit within you helps you realize and remember God’s Word. Then the Holy Spirit will give you the words of Truth. You might hear the message through the Pastor, but the Holy Spirit moves you so you can hear the words God is giving to you.
Because that wasn’t taking place, God promised to give them the new covenant through Jesus Christ. It is not just about worshiping here, but when you go into your fields, you have a living worship. You’re sensitive to the Holy Spirit and by the guidance and working of the Holy Spirit, you worship in your fields. This is not talking about the form or act of worship, but worshiping in Spirit and in Truth.
In Col. 2:12, it represents circumcision as baptism, “having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God,” meaning you are brought back to life. We don’t talk about circumcision anymore, but we talk about baptism, there’s the baptism by the Holy Spirit and the circumcision by the Holy Spirit where you receive the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist gave us the baptism of water, but He told us to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So the Old Testament standards of circumcision have become baptism now.
Going back to the main scripture, Deut. 30:6. Our walk of faith is easy if you love Jesus and you love God. But if you don’t truly love Him and you go to church because you’re a child of God and you have to, it’s very difficult. For example, there are some young adults here, but if you have to keep dating a girl you don’t love, there’s nothing harder than that. You have to keep meeting her because you’re dating. “Because I’m a child of God and I go to church, I have to keep doing things,” there’s nothing harder than that. However, if I truly love God and receive the grace of Jesus Christ and have faith to believe in Him, then things like going to church are not an obligation, just like when a boy or girl love each other, they give their lives up for each other.
The LORD has come into my heart and we have to love and greatly value the cross, you need to love the fact that Jesus Christ has finished everything on the cross. Jesus Christ has finished all the problems of my past, present, and future, and the more you hear these words, the more you receive grace and the more you fall in love. If you don’t know the meaning of that as you believe in Jesus Christ, you’ll have to do something else. Then you look forward to your reward or compensation. That’s not doing something out of love but that’s a business transaction.
The Pharisee inside of you comes out, and people tell you to hold onto the Word but you don’t have the heart for that; instead, you hold onto what you desire. It doesn’t matter how much people tell you, you won’t hold onto God’s Word. There are two paths before us, the path of curses and the path of blessings. It’s the same as the Old Testament. It’s because God is the same and His method is the same; the only difference is that through Jesus Christ, the covenant is closer to us. That’s the only difference.
Deut. 30:7. Simply put, unbelievers are in the midst of curses. If you’re jealous of unbelievers, you’re only looking at the exterior. Because the covenant is not inside of you, you’re looking only at your and their outer shell, you’re destroyed as you’re jealous of them. That’s the extent to which they’ve lived their life as their own master, climbing up their own ladder; inside, they’re completely destroyed. On the outside, they look successful and great, so people get confused.
Deut. 30:8, “You will again obey the LORD and follow all His commands I am giving you today.” We go forward, following God’s covenant in faith. This is what we must continuously do. It’s impossible without faith. This is the way of life for the people of the Kingdom of God. If we don’t live like this, we’re always being humanistic. We live our lives in the same way we’ve lived before we knew the covenant, when we were our own gods. However, the method of God’s kingdom is by His Word.
It doesn’t matter how many great things you have; that is not God’s method. Those are the things of the world and the universe. But this is about the Word of God and prayer. All the other things I thought were good or right before God, I had to get rid of them. Deut. 30:9 says, “God will bless everything you do, your possessions, your children, even the work you’re doing.”
Deut. 30:11, “Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.” Just like in Matthew 11;28, if you think the walk of faith is something you must keep the law for, physically, it will be a difficult and heavy burden. However, if you’re walking with Jesus Christ, the gospel of Jesus Christ Who has finished every problem on the cross, He says His burden is light. The word of God is not far off; it is within me.
In Deut. 30:12, “it is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it,” and Deut. 30:14, “No, the Word is very near you; it is in your mouth and on your heart so you may obey it.” But why does it still feel so difficult for us? You love something else instead, that is the trap Satan has dug out. You think this is right based on your thoughts so you fall into the scheme. It’s not about my thoughts but if you simply follow God’s Word, it’s simple. Have the Word of God in your mouth and in your heart. Whatever words you speak with your mouths is what is in your heart. If you constantly hold onto the words of God’s covenant, then everything is very easy. However, Satan continuously deceives us and our work becomes father and farther away from God’s Word, and we’re deceived by people listening to their words. Even as you hear others’ words, you must hold onto the covenant firmly in your heart, but you’re easily swayed by people’s words so you lose hold of the covenant. When you face a difficult situation, you say, “Things are so difficult again, we’ve lost hold of God’s covenant. God fulfills His covenant regardless of people and your environment or surroundings. The greatest blessing of all blessings is the Word of God being deeply rooted in my heart, becoming my nature.
For our remnants, the future generations, you may not face the answers right now, because before that, the Word must be rooted in your heart. Exactly as God’s Word is promised, the works follow. But the adults are getting deceived, why am I not receiving answers? If you hold onto the covenant, you keep going there in faith. God is bound to answer accurately according to the time schedule and covenant.
Deut. 30:15, “see I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.” Make your decision. It is not that there is no such thing as destruction, but before that, decide, will you choose poverty or destruction? We think this state doesn’t exist. As you live your walk of faith, if you fall into a tribulation or affliction, the words may be correct but they are wrong. I don’t know about America, but in Korea, the class sizes were about 60 per class. Some are loud and rambunctious, but those who study well will not pay attention to that. If they’re in the same class, they say, “I can’t study because the students are loud,” but they don’t have the mindset to study.
It’s the same as your walk of faith. Holding to the covenant, other things don’t matter. If you’re saying words like, “The church is like this and did this to me,” that’s evidence you do not have the covenant. Of course we must know the weaker, vulnerable people and treat them more nicely but it’s a gathering of people, but I f you hold onto the covenant, none of those things matter. If you hold onto the covenant, nothing is a problem; God promised to give us. If a problem is a problem, you’ve lost hold of the covenant and that state is the problem. Properly have the covenant of faith to raise people lightly. Otherwise, you will live your life with thoughts of failure, “I have to leave the church because of this person,” but from God’s perspective, those are words of unbelief.
Those words may be very correct before people, but in front of God. From the devil’s perspective, the devil loves such people. That kind of person will continuously meet those people who cannot have blessings themselves, and they can relate to one another. However, if I go forward with the firm faith in God’s covenant, God will give me the blessing of meeting, and through me those people will be blessed. When you go to work to gain some benefit from work, those words may sound correct but that is not faith in the covenant. If you think about the fact that you have to make money, imagine how much you have to endure and suffer as you work. That is the life of a legalistic person, a person living a religious life.
However, if I’m holding to the covenant as I go into my business, then my job is blessed. I don’t go to my job to get something from it, but I go with the gospel to bless my field as a missionary. If that is not taking place, no matter what, you’ll be taken captive wherever you go. That’s why professional life is difficult and hard; even if you want to quit you cannot because we have to eat and make a living. Life is suffering; evidence is God’s covenant. This is not just about worshiping in the church, God is alive everywhere so as you go to the family, hold onto it as a blessing.
Deut. 30:17, what does it mean that your hearts turn away and you are disobedient, tempted to follow them? You’ve become your own god, and you are tempted to be drawn away from bowing down to God. In Deut. 30:19, what does it mean to choose life that we may live? The way to for us to live is not by working diligently or hard; there is another life of living. It is true life, that is Deut. 30:20. You may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. He is life. What does that mean? It means that my life is not in my hands; it is within God’s covenant, within God’s hands. If we’re separated from that life, which is God, then our life is death. That is a state of death and curses.
Shall we conclude the Word? Jesus Christ finished all problems of your past, present, and future on the cross and is with you right now. Then, we live our life, following the Word God gives us through the Holy Spirit, through the words in worship. We are living with the power of God through prayer and the goal is Canaan conquest, world evangelization, it is to save lives. If you do not save people, you’re in a state of death, separated from God’s covenant. Then you yourselves die. God prepared the blessings for us so we can hold onto the covenant and remain within the Word and prayer to do Temple Construction and save lives and the 237 nations. The one who continuously goes in the word of God without shaking is a person of blessing. May you have that blessing.
Prayer
Let us hold onto the Word God has given us today and pray together.
Our second prayer topic is for the next generation. If you’re praying for the next generation to receive the same answers we receive, that is the prayer that receives answers, because once I leave this earth, the next generation must carry on the same answers we’ve received. If you do not pray for this, you pray an incorrect prayer.
Our third prayer topic is for the region, if it’s not the culture of Christ, it’s the culture of idols and curses. For example, we need Christians to change the culture of their job into the culture of blessings, and the church allows that to happen continuously. That is how we change the culture of idolatry and disasters in the field. That’s what Temple Construction is for, that is God’s plan of all plans. That blessing is prepared for you. Let us pray together for the Temple Construction that will change the culture of idolatry.
Let us pray for world missions to the 237 nations. Right now, there’s such a massive earthquake in Turkey that 20,000 people have died, and the earthquake continuously moves the nations to the west of Turkey. It’s a completely Muslim nation. We must pray for them. If God has allowed us to hear this through the news, God wants us to pray for it. God’s will is not only to pray for them but to also send a missionary to proclaim the gospel in that region.
During the Sunday message, Jesus told us to pray for sending missionaries, so not only Turkey but the nations next to Turkey are collapsing from this earthquake. There’s also a large fault line under California. You may not know this, but the property built on the fault line is cheap. There is a fault line for the earthquakes and the properties are cheap. They don’t know when it will shake. There was an earthquake in the valley and all of that is connected to God’s curses and blessings.
You are the ones to block disasters. Yes, it is important for you to come to church, but when you go out into the field, go out with the covenantal blessing and God will block disasters. Let us pray for all the missions fields, evangelism fields, and especially Turkey.
Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the unending love of God, and the indwelling, working, guidance, and communion of the Holy Spirit, be upon all the heads of all the people of God, the people of all nations and the remnants who desire to hold onto the covenant God has given us, for temple construction and world evangelization, be with us from now until forevermore always, amen.