In God's creation we can glimpse God's heart for us

What Does God Expect From Us?

Appalachian District Life Rally Tour 2011

Marvin R. Dennis

Deuteronomy 6:4-7 (NKJV) “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.”

Introduction: Expectations

Expectations, we all have them. Some common expressions are “I never expected this,” “He really let me down,” I expected more from you.” Or it may be like the epitaph on a gravestone, “I expected this, but not this soon.” When a new pastor comes to a church, both have expectations of each other. The members expect good preaching on Sunday, someone to pray for them, minister in their times of need, give counsel in difficult times, to provide godly leadership for the congregation. People expect honesty, integrity, faithfulness, and a leader who has a heart for God. The pastor likewise has expectations of the people: that they will be faithful to church, pray, live right, pay their tithes and give offerings, be willing to volunteer, not backbite or complain, praise his sermons (Big Grin). In marriage we have expectations. June has some high expectations for me. When we married she expected me to get a job and take care of her, to walk the straight and narrow, and to open doors. I guess that’s what she expects; she will just stand there in front of a door until I open it. (LOL). Expectations form the social contract that is the glue that holds us (or a relationship) together!

Likewise, in our walk with the Lord, we all have expectations of each other. We focus mainly on what we expect from God. Our list gets quite extensive at times, but how often do we consider what God wants from us? What are God’s expectations? This is the most important question! What does God desire from us? He doesn’t leave us in the dark, over and over He tells us what He desires. The Shema (Hebrew for “hear”), Deuteronomy 6:4-5, expresses the heart of it! God wants us to love Him for who He is! We can get a fuller picture into God’s desires by looking at His creation in Genesis chapters 1 & 2.

Creation: God’s Desire and Delight

The Six Days

Six times during creation God evaluated His work and said, “It was good.” After the work of the sixth day, when God created the animals, then Adam and Eve, God said that it was “Very Good!” Just imagine the joy in heaven!
Job 38:7, when God laid the foundations of the earth, “To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God (heavenly beings) shouted for joy?” Can you imagine, billions and billions of stars singing, and the angelic host joining in! If laying the foundation thrilled and awed heaven, just imagine the completion when God pronounced it “Very Good!” Imagine the joy, the praise, the worship throughout the universe. Surely the Stars sang again!

God’s delight in Adam & Eve

Adam and Eve were God’s highest creation, His crowning glory!
Our first parents were without blemish, perfect, created in the image and likeness of God, an expression of Himself!
No doubt the angels marveled and praised God for this marvelous creation---in His own Image and Likeness!
Man was so like God that God could have fellowship with him, could walk and talk with this special couple in the cool of the day. God could commune with man!
In humanity God saw someone to fulfill His dream of restoring that which was lost by Satan’s rebellion.
- God has not given us extensive information on what happened, just a glimpse so we can understand the bigger picture a little better
- In Isaiah chapter 14, God speaks of Lucifer, Son of the Morning. We are told that he was lifted up with pride, and said “I will raise my throne above the starts of God.” Five times he said “I will.” Contrast this with Jesus who prayed three times in the Garden before His crucifixion, “Not my will, buy thy will be done.” but the scripture says, “How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn!”
- In Ezekiel chapter 28, again we see a glimpse into the distant past, “You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you...You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you....So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones.”
- Both Jude and 2 Peter speak of the “angels that sinned” and their judgment.
- From these scriptures we get a little insight into a very cataclysmic event that shook the universe. I believe that God in His wisdom had chosen man to somehow to be the means of restoring and bringing back into harmony that which had been lost by Satan’s rebellion. Maybe even being a means for Satan to be judged. Maybe this explains Satan’s incredible rage against humanity!

So, what did God want from man? Well, God hasn’t changed. God wanted love: heart, soul, and strength! God created us as His highest creation, His crowning Glory, an expression of Himself, without blemish. Angels praised God, stars sang. God had one which whom He could commune, someone like Himself, and someone to fulfill His dream of restoring that lost by Satan’s rebellion! What a beautiful picture!

Until we messed it up!

The Fall, what God lost

In the Garden of Eden, Satan showed up as a serpent slandering God, luring Adam and Eve into disobeying God, "You will not certainly die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat from it {the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil} your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Satan’s temptation was basically, “You can be like God without God.” You can choose the good and reject the evil. But, when our first parents sinned, they did have the knowledge of good, but not the power to attain it, and the knowledge of evil, but not the power to avoid it. So we fell from the lofty position we had with God. Sin entered the world, and through sin death came on the human race. Now we struggle to live, disease racks our bodies, conflicts embroil us, troubles besiege us, until we finally die and this body returns to dust. Even creation was brought into bondage of corruption and is today crying for deliverance (Romans 8). Because God is holy, sin now separates God and man. There is enmity!

What God lost

God’s masterpiece no longer perfect, without blemish.
Sin has distorted the image of God in humanity. Human nature is corrupted
Fellowship is broken; sin separates man from His Creator
God purpose of restoring that lost by Satan’s rebellion seems to be wrecked.
The door is opened for Satan to slander the goodness of God
- Example of Satan’s Slander in the Book of Job (Chapters one & two)

At a time when all the angels came to present themselves before God, Satan came with them. God said, “Satan, where did you come from?” Satan replied, “"From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it." Then the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied. "Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face."

In other words, Satan, the slanderer, said, “God, not even you favorite, Job, will serve you because he loves you. He only serves you for what he can get out of it!” It seems that maybe Satan is implying that God cannot justly condemn him if not even those made in His image will serve out of love. We can only imagine the slander that Satan has spread among the angels! He is the accuser!

We can blame it all on Adam, but we haven’t done very well either. We all have sinned, we all have gone our own way, we have all fallen short of what we were created to be! In Revelation 4:11 “You are worthy, O Lord, To receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will they exist and were created.” Have we offered to God the glory, honor, and power that is His due?

The Shema: “Hear O Israel, the Lord, Our God, The Lord is one.”

God is always true to Himself

The Six Words: Shema Yishrael, Yahweh, Eleheinu, Yahweh Echad
Shema: Hear and obey; Yishrael: People of God
Yahweh: The “I Am.” From “To Be” or maybe “He Brings Into Existence Whatever Exists", Cf. Exodus 3:14 when God told Moses His Name, “I Am who I Am.” and John 8:58 when Jesus said, “ Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” Jesus is appropriating to Himself the Sacred Name of God! No wonder they took up stones to stone Him! They know exactly what He meant!
Elohim: “Strong One,” “Self-Existent One,” The Creator and Judge, One who is not dependent on another.
An expression of the Holy Trinity? Is there a message in God’s Name being repeated three times? Note that God’s name is given three times again! Cf. Exodus 34:6 “And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”
Echad---One. Can mean singular, first in order, or a unity. Example: Genesis 1:24 “The two shall be one flesh.” Also, in Exodus 36:13, after giving instructions for all the curtains and loops of cloth for the tabernacle, he said to make fifty clasps of gold to connect all together that it might be one tabernacle. Clearly, Echad often mean many being one!

Since God is One, He will always be true to Himself. He cannot deny Himself; He cannot lie. He cannot be divided or in conflict!

God is compassionate, merciful, and just. He must be true to His justice

God’s Justice is exact!

Under the law, the way to return to God was Confession, Repentance, and Restitution. Justice requires restitution.
Restitution must be in kind: Exodus 21:23-25 “But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” Deuteronomy 19:21 “Your eye shall not pity: life shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”
Under the law, there were sacrifices for man’s sin against man, but none for man’s sin against God, unless perhaps it was at the Day of Atonement. Why? Because man has no means to restore what he had taken from God!

Numbers 15:30-21 “ ‘But the person who does anything presumptuously, whether he is native-born or a stranger, that one brings reproach on the Lord, and he shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of the Lord, and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt shall be upon him.’ ”

Concerning idolatry, Deuteronomy 29:20 “The Lord will never be willing to forgive them; his wrath and zeal will burn against them. All the curses written in this book will fall on them, and the Lord will blot out their names from under heaven.”

So, How then can restitution be made to God? We see some in Scripture, such as David, that were guilty and yet shown mercy. How can what was lost by the fall be restored? (See Micah 6 & Psalm 50 for references)

Can we pay a fine? We have no money. It would be like a thief saying he will pay back every penny stolen, but needs the victim to make him a loan to be able to do it. Deuteronomy 10:17 says “God accepts no bribes.”
Will the sacrifice of animals do it? God says that all the cattle on a thousand hills are His, and all the beasts of the forest. He does not delight in burnt offerings!
Would offering our firstborn? Or offering our own lives? The same tainted blood that flowed in Adam’s veins flows in ours! We cannot offer to God corruption and hope it will restore incorruption!
We are helpless! We are guilty and have no means of making restitution!

God’s Answer! How can God satisfy both His mercy and His justice and still not deny Himself?

God Himself would become man, born of a virgin in a stable in Bethlehem of Judea, live the one perfect life, loving God with all His heart, soul, and strength.
The Perfect Man would then die for the sin of the race, A life for a life. By one man’s disobedience sin entered the world (along with all the ills), and by one man obedience righteousness was made available all! He paid a debt He did not own, I owed a debt I could not pay. I needed someone to wash my sins away! God’s justice was satisfied in full!
Then, on the third day, He arose from the grave, victorious over death, hell, and the grave! He arose in His human body to present to God a new humanity, clean through the blood of Jesus, clothed in His righteousness, holy, without blame! The Second Adam restored to God all that the First Adam had lost!
The New Race is once again God’s Masterpiece, without blemish, in communion with God, the awe of angels, with the destiny of restoring all that was lost by Satan’s rebellion once more in sight. Now is Satan judged! God has a people who love Him with all their hearts, souls, and strength in Christ Jesus! At the Cross Mercy and Justice kissed!
Now, In Christ, we are presented to God "holy, unblamable, and unreprovable" in His sight Colossians 1:22). The atoning blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin and we are clothed in the Righteousnes of Christ! His purpose is fulfilled "that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love" (Ephesians 14b). Now we "reign in life."
Jesus made perfect restution to the justice of God.
God has placed the Church on the pedestal of eternity that "the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 3:10).
God has been true to HImself, both His Mercy and His Justice are satisfied in Christ Jesus, and now, we are the Bride of Christ soon to be joined with our Heavenly Bridegroom for eternity to rule and reign with Him forever! All because "Jesus paid it al!" Now, our response is to live out His love in our lives, to seek to bring glory to Him in all we do, and to love Him heart, soul, and strength!

Conclusion. God still wants our love. He is never satisfied with outward service. He wants your heart. God reaches out for our love. Now that the enmity is removed, restitution made in full, the former state restored, we can love God heart, soul, and strength!

Jesus said this is the greatest commandment! And the second is like it, to love our neighbors as ourselves. God wants us to live out our love for Him in our service to one another. God is love; little children, love one another!