Lev 8:4+5, So Moses did just as the Lord commanded him. When the congregation was assembled at the doorway of the tent of meeting, Moses said to the congregation, "This is the thing which the Lord has commanded to do." 
…So Moses did just as the Lord commanded him…This is something which needs to be considered as it is emphasized over and over again in our morning’s reading. It is imperative to do that which the Lord commands. That is the full stress and weight of the entire Bible! It is the precise reason that the Lord has so blessed us with His Word, as it will open to us His heart of instruction with the focus on our hearts becoming more and more obedient to Him.
How do we read the scripture in terms of our time in His Word? Is it just to say that we read it each day, with no accounting for what we read? Is it a matter of obligation because we know we should read it, so we put in the amount of time that we think will suffice to be in His Word? Is it with a critical eye that is looking for the supposed faults and the loop-holes and the things that we might consider to be contradictory elements of what is laid out before us? Is it with the sense that we can never really understand what is going on, but we are willing to read and to read and to read all the more hoping that it will somehow make sense in time? Is it with the hope that we will find a nugget that will make our lives better with some wisdom for our emotional response?     
    	These are only a few of the manners in which people will read the Word of God, trying to make it fit their ideas and their concepts and their imaginations. There is no real understanding that the emphasis of His Word is to make known the Lord’s will in our lives. He shows us, through the history of the Old Testament, how obedience is so vital to the fellowship of His people with The Holy and Awesome God. Then, in the writings of the New Testament, He presents the living manner in which that obedience is made to be the very lives that His people live through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
	This brings us to a very essential and crucial reality. Many people try to limit Jesus to the role of Savior. They will honor Him as the means of their fire insurance but deny Him the rightful place of His Lordship in their lives. This is such a gross misunderstanding of scripture and Who Jesus is! If He is truly our Savior, He must be Our Lord! His effective salvation requires that we surrender our wills and our ways and our determinations of what is right and wrong unto Him for His way and His will and His perfection to be the only life that we learn to live on this earth. That requires our utmost obedience to His Word as the Holy Spirit makes it so very real in us and to us! We may not be perfect on this earth in submitting to it and in our filial obedience, but that will be the focus and the desire of our hearts before God. We will want to know Him as Lord and Savior in increasing measure as our lives are brought into line with His commands and will. 
In line with that heart, the Word of God makes it known exactly what we are to do and how we are to do it. It is not a matter of legalism, setting aside the grace and the mercy of God, thinking that we can earn anything that would cause us to be saved. It is the truth that because we are saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our lives reflect that reality in the manner in which we are the living testimony of the One Who now indwells us. Accordingly, that testimony can only be true and accurate as we obey His Word and His guidance and His witness in our hearts and beings. We will be seen as living from a completely different focal point because Christ is the One Who lives forth His life in us.
The Word of God, then, becomes that living revelation of all that God has instilled into us in Jesus. His Law and His commandments are no longer seen as restrictive and suppressive, but rather as the manner in which to more perfectly please God. As Christ has fulfilled the Law, so are we free to enjoy honoring God in accordance with the obedience that will bring Him all the more glory and praise and reverence and adoration. We will cherish the every opportunity to express our willingness to obey the One Who has so loved us and given Himself for us.
Accordingly, we now find our hearts fully in line with what we read in His Word, gaining an increasing appreciation for the manner in which He has dealt so faithfully and so consistently with His people as recorded in the history of the Old Testament. Consider how God showed them, as in Deut 4:1+2, that they needed to take His Law and to cherish and to obey it in order to find fulfillment and enjoyment in the Promised Land. Deut 4:1+2, "And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I am teaching you to perform, in order that you may live and go in and take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. 
    	They were not free to twist and to change His Word given to them. They were not to add or to detract from what He had put before them for their own health and well-being and safety. This is something which humanity is so adept at doing. We hear what we want to hear, and twist and turn it into that which suits our purposes and our thoughts and our ideas. When God says “no” to something, we try to manipulate and to massage that “no” into a “maybe”, under specific circumstances rather than the definitive “No”. “Thou shalt not” becomes redefined in our minds into “It might better serve your purposes if you didn’t do this, but only if you feel that your life would not be hindered by it.” 
	We are so adept at adding this stipulation or that it is only a suggestion that we heard. We manufacture theoretical situations that would counterbalance our strict obedience to His Word and to His commands in order to add layers of doubt and variance and shadings of interpretation.
	However, God sets all those devisings and manipulations and excuses aside again in Deut 12:32, where He reemphasizes the requirement that He set forth. Deut 12:32, "Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it. No ifs, and’s or but’s! No extenuating circumstances! No hypothetical situations or gray areas! …Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it.
	The Prophet Samuel gave voice to this for us in 1 Sam 15:22. Here, he made known the fact that just because the people may be doing the ritualistic aspects of the religious practices and concepts, it was their heart which was the determining factor of how they pleased the Lord. They could sacrifice so many animals that rivers of blood ran through the streets but it meant nothing to God if their hearts were not seeking to honor the Lord with the obedience that showed that they valued and loved God and wanted to please Him with all that they were doing. 1 Sam 15:22, And Samuel said, "Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams. 
	Generations later, in Mic 6:7+8, the Prophet Micah voiced the same warning to the nation. Mic 6:7+8, Does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams, In ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my first-born for my rebellious acts, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God? 
When we walk humbly with our God it means that we recognize Who He is and who we are. We see His Holiness and His Righteousness and His Awesomeness. We desire to give Him glory and praise and honor in the manner of the conduct that we live before Him. As He guides us, we follow. As He directs, we listen and obey from the sincerity that He is worthy of all our fidelity and willing submission to His every command.
	Our Lord Jesus, in Mark 7:6-9, dealt with the same self-centered attitudes displayed by the religious leaders of His day. In citing their observance of the Law, He pointed out their utter lack of love for God and for their fellow man. They stipulated the course of everyone’s life without the reverence and the awe and the appreciation of the Majesty and the Sovereignty and the heart-felt loyalty to God. They were lording their position over the people rather than submitting humbly to the Lord God Almighty.   
    	Mark 7:6-9, And He said to them, "Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me. 'But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.' "Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men." He was also saying to them, "You nicely set aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. 
	Again, in Luke 16:15-17, is recorded the exchange between Our Lord and the Pharisees with regard to the manner in which the religiosity of mankind had replaced the inherent love for God that we should see in His given Law. The Law had been made into a measuring rod of spiritual competition between men rather than the recognized manifestation of the relationship that was to be between man and God. 
Luke 16:15-17, And He said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God. "The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since then the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached, and every one is forcing his way into it. "But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the Law to fail.
The full force of the obedience of man to the command of God was inherently summarized by Christ in the Great Commission as recorded in Matt 28:19+20. Here, Jesus commanded His disciples, and us, to go forth into all the world to spread the Good News of the love of God sent in the Only Begotten Son of God. Matt 28:19+20, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. "   
	As we live forth the life of Christ, in obedience to His guidance and leading in His Word, by the power of the Holy Spirit, so will others be drawn to and receive the living gospel of the truth that there is salvation only in Him. The Good News of His saving grace and Lordship of lives will be evidenced in the direct obedience to honor Him every moment of every day.
	As pronounced in 1 Cor 11:23-29, by the Apostle Paul, we need to search out our hearts, to examine ourselves with regard to the manner in which we give our honor and obedience to God. If it is for any reason other than to bring joy and blessing to Him, if we are doing everything in terms of elevating ourselves over another, if we are only seeking to avoid some dire consequence, we need to plead with the Lord to cause us to know Him and His commandments in the manner that will simply seek to please Him.  
1 Cor 11:23-29, For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly. 
	We need to hold fast the Word of God in our hearts with the every desire that He would bring us into that relationship in which His Word is our command to share the love and the joy and the peace and the salvation that is found only in Jesus Christ. As declared in Phil 2:8-13, if you would follow along, this means knowing Him, not only as Savior, but as the One True Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent Lord God Almighty. His every command is to be met with the utmost and earnest desire of our whole being to honor Him.
    	Phil 2:8-13, And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. 
In Christ’s death and resurrection, He delivered us from sin and death and was crowned the Eternal King of all Creation. His Lordship was cemented for all eternity and it is in our unreserved obedience to His commands that we give willing and joyful witness to His Supreme Sovereignty. So be it!
	So Moses did just as the Lord commanded him. When the congregation was assembled at the doorway of the tent of meeting, Moses said to the congregation, "This is the thing which the Lord has commanded to do." Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Deut 7:9. Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments; Amen.