Deut. 4:1-40

[0:00] Good morning, my name's Jordan. Oh yeah, I need that. Thanks, Jess. My name's Jordan Leach. I'm thankful for the opportunity to preach today.

[0:12] ! I will warn you, I picked a pretty long and thick text. It might be a little beyond my capability, but I'm going to do my best. And hopefully there's something that God has for us in it.

[0:28] So church, one thing I've realized as of late is that the battle for lifelong faithfulness needs to be a battle that we actively fight every day. But I also think that we often fight for faithfulness in the wrong way. I know that I do.

[0:47] And it is my desire that every single one of you and every one of your children be found faithful on that last day. I want all of you to persevere in faith. And so that's what I'm going to talk to you about today. We're going to look at Deuteronomy 4 and develop a formula for lifelong faithfulness.

[1:07] The title of today's sermon is Faithfulness for Generations. The biblical scene that we are jumping into is a speech by Moses to the children of Israel. Moses is nearing the end of his life in ministry, and he is exhorting the next generation of Israelites to remain faithful as they prepare to enter the promised land. And now the next generation has its opportunity. Oh, so, sorry.

[1:36] The previous generation of Israelites had failed to be faithful, and they were unable to enter this land of promise. And now the next generation has its opportunity, and Moses is teaching them how to be faithful. Moses knows that he will not be able to go with them into the promised land, and so he is laying the groundwork for them to stand faithfully on their own. Deuteronomy 4 is a remarkable text, and I'm not going to be able to do it justice. However, by God's grace, I hope to show you a simple formula that, Lord willing, can be a helpful aid in your pursuit of faithfulness. I mean this, if I can manage to provide you with a little bit of truth that enables you to walk faithfully for the long haul, I'd be very happy. I want to be with every one of you in eternity.

[2:30] I want to worship the Lord with you. I want to share with you the wonder of seeing his beautiful face, and I want to stand with your children as equals at the marriage supper of the Lamb, celebrating his redemption of humanity. And so, I want us all to remain faithful.

[2:56] So, according to Deuteronomy 4, the formula for faithfulness looks like this. God's love plus a knowledge of God's character produces human love that responds to God in obedience. So, God's love plus a knowledge of God will yield human love and obedience. To say it another way, faithfulness is initiated by love, invigorated by knowledge, and manifested in obedience. And so, our daily battle for faithfulness is not primarily a battle for what we must do. Rather, it is a battle to know the love and character of God and to allow that knowledge to fuel our love for him, which will produce within us a desire to act faithfully. So, we'll read the text, and then we'll pray. It's a long text. I think we have it up. So, as I read this text, this is written as a speech from Moses to the children of Israel. So, it stands alone pretty well on its own. So, we're going to read the whole thing.

[4:08] And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord your God, that the Lord the God of your fathers has given you. You shall not add to the word that I commanded you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, that I commanded you. Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal Peor, for the Lord your God destroyed from among you all the men who followed the Baal of Peor. But you who held fast the Lord your God are all alive today. See, I have taught you the statutes and rules, as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering, to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of all peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there that has a

[5:15] God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?

[5:27] Only take care and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget what your eyes have seen, unless they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children, how on that day you stood before the Lord at God at Horeb, and the Lord said to me, gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.

[5:58] And the Lord came near and stood at the foot of the mountain. While the mountain burned with fire in the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, clouds, and gloom, the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of his words, but saw no form, there was only a voice. And he decided, and he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone. And the Lord God commanded me at that time to teach you the statutes and rules, that you may do them in the land that you are going over to possess. Therefore, watch yourselves carefully, since you saw no form on that day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb, out of the midst of the fire. Beware, lest you act corruptly, making carved images for yourself, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male and female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water, under the earth. And beware, lest you raise your eyes to heaven. And when you see the sun and the moon and the stars and the host of heavens, you be drawn away to bow down to them and serve them.

[7:09] Things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the people under the whole heaven. But the Lord God has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day. Farthermore, the Lord was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I should not cross the Jordan, and that I should not enter the good land that the Lord God has given you for inheritance. For I must die in this land. I must not go over the Jordan. But you shall go over and take possession of the good land. Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make carved images in the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

[7:54] When you father children and children's children, and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil on the side of the Lord, so as to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth and witnesses against you, that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed. And the Lord will scatter you among the people, and you will be left few in number among the nations with the Lord, that the Lord will drive you. And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him. If you search after him with your heart, and with all your soul, when you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the later days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. For the Lord your God is a merciful God.

[8:49] He will not leave you, or destroy you, or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them. For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and asked from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing has ever happened, or has ever been heard of. Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out in the midst of fire, as you heard, and are still alive? Or has any God ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and outstretched armed, and by great deeds of terror? All of which the Lord God did for you in Egypt before your eyes. To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord is God. There is no other beside him.

[9:41] Out of heaven let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you. And on earth he was there, and you heard the words out of the midst of the fire, and because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them, and brought you out of the land of Egypt by his own presence and by his great power, driving out before you the nations that are mightier and greater than you, to bring you in and to give you their land as an inheritance to this day. Now therefore today, know therefore today, and lay it in your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above, and on earth beneath. There is no other.

[10:21] Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you, and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that the Lord your God has given you for all time.

[10:40] Alright, this is Mike going to last? We'll see. No? Alright. Alright, I'll pray and then we'll jump in. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we've got a big task ahead of us. It's a big text. It's a thick text.

[10:56] We're in over our heads. I mean, it's clear every time we come to your word. But, you give us your spirit to help us discern what is true, and I pray that you would be with us and help us discern what is true from this text and how it is relevant to us and the things that we can learn about you so that we might love you and know you better.

[11:20] Amen. So after reading that, you may say, what are you talking about, Jordan? How is that passage about love? If you're like me, what stood out to you was a list of things for you to do.

[11:34] You probably noticed the commands in this text. Listen to the statutes and rules that I give you, that I am teaching you, and do them. You shall not add to the word that I commanded you or take from it, that I may keep you, that you may keep the commandments.

[11:50] That's in verse 2. And farther references to God's command. Verse 5 tells the Israelites to do them in the land that they're entering. Verse 6 encourages them to keep them and do them, for they, God's command, will be their wisdom and understanding.

[12:03] Farthermore, the text says to, in verse 9, take care and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget what your eyes have seen. Verse 9 says, to make all this stuff known to your children and to your children's children.

[12:20] Verse 10 tells them to fear the Lord. Verse 10 also reminds them to teach the children to fear the Lord. Verse 15 tells us to watch ourselves carefully. Verse 16, 19, and 23 all warn the children of Israel against idolatry.

[12:34] So maybe you're thinking, wow, Jordan, you're not proving your point very well. It sure sounds like faithfulness is about doing all these things. It sounds like faithfulness is all about knowing and doing God's word.

[12:49] It's about teaching your kids to know God's way. It's about watching your soul diligently. It's about turning from idolatry. It's about being careful not to forget God's ways. It's about maintaining the fear of the Lord.

[13:02] And yes, faithfulness does consist of all those things. However, faithfulness is not produced by any of those things. And this is where we so often go wrong.

[13:15] We think faithfulness is primarily about what we do. And so we work and we do and we hope that through our doing, we might obtain faithfulness.

[13:28] But friends, the good news of this passage and the good news of scripture is that God's faithfulness is freely given. He has given us himself as a gift.

[13:39] And through this gift, human faithfulness can be produced. So I'm gonna read a few parts again. I'm gonna read verse 20. If you guys have your Bibles, it could be good.

[13:50] I'm gonna be bouncing around a bit. So Deuteronomy 4.20, it says, but the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt to be a people for his own possession as you are this day.

[14:05] Verse 32, for ask now the days that are past, which were before you since the day that God created man on the earth, ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing has ever happened or has ever been heard of.

[14:18] Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the fire as you have and still live? Or has any God ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself in the midst of another nation by trials, by signs, by wonders and by war, by a mighty hand and outstretched arm and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes.

[14:40] To you, it was shown that you might know that the Lord is God and there is no other besides him. Out of heaven, he let you hear his voice that he might discipline you. And on earth, he let you see his great fire and you heard his words in the midst of the fire.

[14:55] And because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought them out of Egypt with his own presence and by his great power, driving out before them nations greater and mightier than you to bring you in and to give you the land of your inheritance as it is this day.

[15:14] So we see through a couple places in those things I just read that the gift is God himself. Verse 20 reminds the children of Israel that God brought them out of Egypt to be his own inheritance.

[15:29] Verse 34 looks in amazement at the God who flexed his power over the most powerful nation in the world to take the entire nation of Israel for himself.

[15:42] And verse 37 tells us why God did all this. It was because he loved their fathers and chose them and brought them out of Egypt with his own presence and by his great power.

[15:55] So the gift is God himself. He is the reward. The prize of the faithful is to know and be known by the one true God.

[16:07] The people of Israel were chosen to be his special people, a people of his own inheritance, a people that would get to enjoy his presence and see his power. And what did the children of Israel have to do to get this great gift?

[16:20] Well, nothing. They did absolutely nothing. It was God who initiated this relationship. It was God who loved them. It was God who chose them. It was God who rescued them from Egypt.

[16:32] And it was God who was bringing them to the promised land. So Shoreline, super easy question. Who took the first step in this relationship? Was it God or was it Israel? It was God.

[16:44] And this is where the relationship starts. And this is also where faithfulness must start. Moses wanted the children of Israel to see the love and unearned favor of God as the fuel of their faithfulness.

[16:59] But that's not all that Moses wanted them to recognize. He also wanted them to know what this God was like. If the people were going to be faithful, they needed to understand what their God was like.

[17:13] It's hard to obey somebody that you don't know. It's hard to trust somebody that you don't know. Well, God knew this as well. And so he took the time to both teach and show the children of Israel what he was like.

[17:30] He did this because he wanted to help them. But he also did this because he had initiated a relationship with them. And for a relationship to work well, there must be relational knowledge.

[17:42] And so we'll look at some of the things that Moses highlights about what this God is like. First, we see that God is a gracious giver.

[17:56] We see that God rescued them and then he gave them himself. Like he brought himself among them, right? And we'll get more on that later, but that's pretty crazy, right?

[18:09] You know, this random people and the God who made everything, created everything, sustains everything is like, I want you, right? And so he comes in and he enters their world and he says, I've chosen you and I want you to know me and I want to know you, right?

[18:26] And so he's a giver. He's a giver of himself. He's also a giver of his word. So I'll read in the very first verse, we see two other aspects of God's, that he's a generous giver.

[18:44] It says, now Israel, listen to the statutes and rules that I am teaching you and do them that you may live and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord your God, your father has given you. So right off the bat, Moses is highlighting two precious gifts of the Lord.

[18:56] Gift number one, the word he gave. We often have a negative reaction to the ideas of rules because they seem to be restrictive to us. But that's not the intention of the law that God gave his people.

[19:09] His law was intended to be both a spiritual, to be both spiritually and socially beneficial. It was designed to impart life, not restrict it.

[19:20] For example, let's consider the 10 commandments. The first four commandments were oriented around the people understanding and relating to God. The next six commandments talk about how they ought to function together as a society.

[19:33] God knew that if his people were to enjoy life, they would need certain rules. So he gave them that. We all know that overwork and no rest, children disobeying, families breaking down, murder, infidelity in marriage, theft, lying, legal malpractice, and covetousness are not the ingredients for a happy, healthy society.

[19:59] And so God graciously prohibits all of these things in society as a means of his grace. God's law was also intended to impart wisdom and to be a testimony to the other nations concerning the righteousness and wisdom of God.

[20:13] We see this in verse six. This is where the other nations are going to recognize the wise laws that the people have and they're going to say, what a wise and understanding God you must have.

[20:28] What a near God that you must have. What a great God that he hears you when you call to him. Right? And so this word was supposed to be their wisdom and their understanding and a testament to the nations around them.

[20:42] The second gift that Moses highlights is the land that he has promised. I'm not going to spend much time here, but the point is this. God was giving them a good land. We see that in verse 21.

[20:54] He was taking them from slavery where they had no land and he was bringing them into a land that was flowing with milk and honey. If you're a displaced nation, what is one of the major things that you need most?

[21:05] Well, you need somewhere to live. God was working that out for them. He had given them a good land. He had directed them along their journey. He had protected them and taught them along the way and he had promised to ultimately help them attain this land.

[21:20] The next thing that Moses wants us to see or one of the children of Israel to see about God is that he is the sovereign Lord. So Moses reminds the people how he had brought them out of the iron furnace of Egypt.

[21:35] This is in verse 20. This was intended to show the people that the God that they were serving had authority over the nations of this world. Egypt was a world power at the time and I'm going to read some of the texts and fit it in there.

[21:52] Egypt was a world power at the time and God brought them out, his people, by trials, signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and outstretched arm and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord did to you, did for you in Egypt before your eyes.

[22:06] To you this was shown so that you might know that the Lord is God and there is no other besides him. So one of the reasons that God worked so decisively over Egypt was because he wanted to show his people his capability.

[22:23] He wanted to demonstrate that he was indeed in charge of the earth. And so he made a spectacle of Egypt for the sake of his people. And just like as a side note, right?

[22:39] One of the things that we as humans need most when wrestling with the reality of God, we need to know that he is both good and capable, right?

[22:50] And so just know how God had shown those things to the children of Israel. He had showed that he was good because he came to them in their slavery and rescued them. And he did it with a strong arm, right? So the text talks about God's strong right arm, but like they were enslaved, like they couldn't do anything to get out of slavery.

[23:07] But by the end of God's work with Egypt, Egypt couldn't have re-enslaved them if they wanted to, right? He broke Egypt's power, right? And so they had no power to re-enslave God's people, right?

[23:21] And as we get farther in this, we're going to see that that's also what Christ has done for us, right? In a much bigger way. But so first thing that God does for his people is he shows them, hey, I'm good.

[23:32] I hear you. I'm going to rescue you. I'm going to give you myself, right? And he also shows, hey, I'm capable. Like I'm powerful enough to meet your needs, right?

[23:42] And so he's doing some really beautiful things to his people. And it is from the fruit of that that Moses wants the people to then take steps in faithfulness.

[23:56] We see also, I think this is cool. So when we're talking about God's sovereignty, in verse 38, he says he's going to drive out nations that are greater or mightier than you to bring you in and to give you the land for an inheritance.

[24:12] So God's basically using, hey, what I've done in the past shows you that I'm capable of what I'm promising in the future. But it also shows that, hey, he's sovereign over the future. This God that's talking to them has power over the future.

[24:25] It's like not only does he have power over these nations, but he has power over what's coming, right? And that's a really powerful thing for them to understand too. And those kind of things are really needed for them because they were going to go and try to take this land.

[24:39] And the nations that were there were greater and mightier and more powerful than them, right? And so they're going to be afraid, right? But these are the breadcrumbs that God is putting along the way to help increase their faith and give them the ability when they are faced with these giants in this land to trust that God is capable, right?

[24:59] And so that's what God's doing here. Moses also wants us to see that God is unique and that he is holy. So I hope after the last section, or I don't know, I've read the text a few times, you have that refrain stuck in your head.

[25:16] The refrain is this, that you might know that the Lord is God and there is no other. Not only is there God sovereign over both earth and the future, he is also completely unique and utterly holy.

[25:30] Verses 10 to 12 recount the Israelites' experience at Mount Horeb, the mountain that the Lord descended upon in order to give the people the law. Moses reminds them saying, you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom.

[25:53] Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of his words, but saw no form. There was only a voice and he declared to you his covenant. So this God, who had shown such love to his people, was also dangerously holy.

[26:13] Here we get a glimpse of his holiness on display in a physical way. The people came near the mountain, but they were also required to keep a distance because they could not handle the full presence of the Lord.

[26:23] His presence was utterly overwhelming. And Moses wants the people to recognize this. In verse 32, Moses drives this point home by asking the people to remember and consider the holiness of God.

[26:37] In verse 32, he says, for ask now of the days that are past, which were before you since the day God created a man on the earth and ask from one end of heaven to another, whether such a great thing has ever happened or was ever heard of.

[26:51] And so it's like, all right, that's kind of a big introduction. Like look at history past, look in the future, look all around the world. Has anything this great happened before? And then what he says is, did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire as you have and still live?

[27:06] Moses wants them to recognize the uniqueness of the relationship to God. He says, be amazed. You got to hear the very voice of God and you are not destroyed by it.

[27:18] This God that they serve is not to be trifled with. He is holy. There is a tension that Moses wants the people to understand. This God is both accessible and inaccessible at the same time.

[27:31] He has come to be near his people, but his very nearness is also dangerous because of the ferocity of his holiness. Moses wants to see also that this God is unique.

[27:47] And we see this kind of language here. I'm probably not going to go into as much depth here. But he's warning them against idolatry. And I think human idolatry takes on kind of two forms, right? We either say, I don't really care that much about you, God, and I love this thing or I want this thing and so I'm going to serve that.

[28:05] Right? And so we see the people of Israel doing that when they're chasing after the gods of other nations, right? But we also see that idolatry can take the form of, okay, so I have this God who's completely different than anything in this created world, but I'm going to try to understand him by making him like the things in this created world.

[28:25] Right? So God is warning them. He's saying, hey, I'm utterly different. Right? So don't miss me by chasing after the idols or reject me by chasing after other nations' idols and also don't miss me by misunderstanding me.

[28:44] Right? Our God is a self-revealing God. Outside of his self-revelation through his word and through his acts, you know, we can't go and say like, oh, like, this is what God's like because that's what my son's like or my wife's like or what I'm like.

[29:00] Right? And we have that tendency to do that and he's saying, hey, don't do that. Don't worship idols. Don't make images in your mind or in the world to try to represent who I am.

[29:12] Let me be represented by my own word and by my own acts. Right? And so we see that this God is utterly unique. We also see that this God is merciful and faithful.

[29:25] Verse 25 through 31 catapults us into the future where despite God's present warning about idolatry, the people will act corruptly and serve idols around the nations.

[29:37] So we talked about this God who's sovereign over the future. He's looking at the future and says, oh, by the way, you guys are gonna wander. Right? And so I'll read that. And the Lord, and then in response, right, that's gonna elicit provoke the Lord to anger and elicit his discipline.

[29:54] Right? We see that this God loves them enough to discipline them. Right? Just like a father loves his children, so he disciplines his children. Right? This God calls his people to himself and he's not just gonna like let them go.

[30:08] Right? So his love means that he's gonna press in. Right? And pressing in means he disciplines. Right? And so he says, hey, your acts in the future are going to cause you to wander from me and serve idols.

[30:19] And the Lord will scatter you among the people. This is in verse 27. And you will be there and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. And there you will serve the God of wood and stone, the work of human hands that neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.

[30:35] But from there you will seek the Lord and you will find him. If you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul when you're in tribulation and all these things come upon you in the later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice.

[30:49] For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant that he made with your fathers that he swore to them. So despite their future rejection of him God will not reject them.

[31:04] For he is merciful. He will not leave them forsake them or forget his covenant with them. I mean this is really amazing if we sit back. If you look at this relationship who is the main player in this relationship?

[31:16] The people or God? And it's like the people should be like no, we need to do everything we can to be faithful to this God who just kind of spoke into our world and rescued us from slavery and gave us himself and all these things and God's like no it's actually you're the ones who aren't going to be faithful but I will be faithful to you.

[31:35] And when you wander and when you run I will be merciful and I will not leave you and I will not forsake you. Right? And this is the wonderful God that they serve and the wonderful God that we serve.

[31:50] And so Moses ends his speech we're looking at verse 40 now by saying oh so all these things right Moses is drawing the attention of the people to the nature and character of God because he desires that they use this knowledge as fuel for future faithfulness.

[32:07] And so as Moses ends his speech we're looking in verse 40 now he says therefore because I'm adding this because of God's love and character you shall keep his statutes and his commandments which I command you today that it may go well with you and your children after you that you may prolong your days in a land that the Lord your God has given you for all of time.

[32:27] So Moses is saying yes faithfulness looks like knowing and doing God's word faithfulness looks like teaching your kids to know God's ways it looks like watching your souls diligently turning from idolatry being careful not to forget God's ways and maintaining the fear of the Lord but all of this must be done in response to what God has already done for you.

[32:51] If you don't know love and trust God you will never be able to obey. And this is actually exactly what Moses had witnessed a generation ago.

[33:04] Listen to Moses recount the story of the previous Israelite generation in Deuteronomy 1, 21 to 33. If you want to turn there I'll give you a sec. So in this scene the previous generation was also on the edge of the promised land.

[33:23] They were preparing to enter. They had also seen God work on their behalf. So in verse 21 of chapter 1 we see so this is Moses talking see the Lord your God has set before you go up so this is Moses talking to the people go up and take possession as the Lord your God as the Lord the God of your fathers has told you do not fear or be dismayed.

[33:52] Then all of you this is the children of Israel came to me and said let us send men before us that they may explore the land for us and bring us the word again by which we must go up and the cities into which we shall come.

[34:07] The thing seemed good to me and I took twelve men from among you one from each tribe and they turned and they went to the hill country and came to the valley of Eschol and spied it out.

[34:19] So this is the people they're about to go in and they're saying hey Moses go in and they're like hey can we send some spies first like we should probably figure out what's going on in there and so now the spies come back and we hear what they say and they took in their hands some of the fruit of the land and brought it down to us and they brought us the word again and said it is a good land that the Lord is giving us so good spies say this is a great land yet Moses says you would not go up but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God and you murmured in your tents and said because the Lord hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt to give us in the hands of the Amorites to destroy us where are we going up to they said our brothers have made our hearts melt these are the spies they've made our hearts melt saying the people are greater and they're taller than us their cities are great and fortified up to the heavens and beside we have seen the sons of

[35:20] Anakin there and this is Moses then I said to you do not be in dread or afraid of them the Lord your God goes before you and he himself will fight for you just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes and into the wilderness when you had seen how the Lord your God carried you as a man carries his son all the way that you went until you came to this place so Moses is saying I get it you're scared right but think about what God did in Egypt and how he carried you through the wilderness like a father carries his son yet in spite of this word you did not believe the Lord your God who went before you in the way that you and basically they refused to go in and they refused to obtain the promised land so Moses having just experienced this generation before he knows that the future obedience would be impossible for the people if they did not first love and trust God the people of the previous generation testified to the goodness of the land that God was bringing them into the spies reported that it was indeed a good land but fear led them to misinterpret

[36:31] God's goodness as hatred they said because the Lord hated us he brought us out of the land of Egypt to give us into the lands of the Amorites to destroy us they were unable to obey because they were not able to trust they could not trust because they did not know the love and character of God do you guys get that dynamic okay so basically we're interpreting what God was doing as for in love and they were saying you're just trying to hurt us you just drug us here to kill us they didn't trust them they didn't love them they didn't receive okay so if you are in Christ you have a similar yet greater experience of God's love and character than the Israelites of this story did one of the reasons why I love this text is because of verse 32 and verse 34 so I'll read verse 32

[37:33] I've done it a couple times already for ask now of the days that are past which were before you since that day that God created man on the earth asked from one end of the earth to the other whether such a great thing has ever happened or was ever heard of right into this rhetorical question I want to shout yes yes I have I actually have heard of something greater Moses something that would blow your mind oh man Moses if only you knew have I ever heard the voice of God speaking out of the midst of a fire as you've heard and still lived well no but I have heard about this man Jesus who tore down the barrier between God and man and now I have the voice of God and the very presence of God indwelling my soul I am not destroyed because Christ has purchased this privilege for me because of him God's presence is no longer veiled and then verse 34 says or has any God ever tempted to take a nation for himself out of the midst of another nation by trials by signs by wonders by war and by a mighty hand and outstretched arm and by great deeds of terror all of which the Lord

[38:46] God did for you in Egypt before your eyes well Moses it's wonderful that God plucked Israel out of the hand of Egypt and that God rendered Egypt powerless to re-enslave them but again Moses I've seen greater God has plucked me and his entire global church out of the hands of sin death and the devil and through Christ's death and resurrection those enemies are powerless over his church forever and so shoreline to you it was shown that you might know that the Lord is God and that there is none other besides him so therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments which I command you today that it may go well with you and your children after you so shoreline just like the Israelites you have been chosen by God you have been called to be his special people you have been given relationship with the God of the universe the maker creator and sustainer of all things he has come to you and he has initiated a relationship with you when he freed you from slavery from sin and from death he has given you good gifts he has given you himself his word and promised you a future home with him for all of eternity he has also proven his authority over all things he is still in charge of the nations the future but he has also proven to be sovereign over even death itself he is utterly unique and holy but he has made a clean and decisive way for you to enjoy his presence within the nearness of your own heart he is still merciful and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness so therefore seek to know him and his word his word shows you who he is take advantage of it he is wonderful and he showed us that in his word so let's be people of his word let's be people who know and do and seek his word also his word is intended to be your source of wisdom and understanding the sight of all people so just one brief encouragement here i've seen this kind of in the church like american church we seem to be shy sometimes about the things that the lord's commanded us to do in his word they seem culturally irrelevant please don't be shy about the god's word before your non-believing friends rather be bold the living out of his word is intended to be a sign of god's wisdom and nearness to the watching world when we make excuses for or minimize the countercultural aspects of our faith we are silencing the wisdom that god intends for the world to see through the lives of his people our society does not have a better grasp on what is real and true than god's word does so please don't act like they do boldly do what the lord teaches is intended to help the world see him also be faithful to teaching your children and to your children's children i want to keep this brief but from today's text we are encouraged to do three things with our children to teach them about god's word this is in verse 9 to teach them about god's works basically he wants the children of israel to tell them about what god has done and tell them about what god's acts show about his character right and so we don't just want to fill our kids with information about god we want to show why that's relevant and how he's real and how he's interacting with us and finally we are warned not to teach them our idolatry and sin this is in verse 25 friends your children clearly see what you are like and they clearly see what you love please know that your false loves and sin habits will serve as teachers for

[42:46] your children if you live in service to the god of comfort success ease and entertainment your children will know and they will likely follow suit if you're continually responding in harshness and anger your children will probably develop similar habits of corruption so please recognize that faithfulness and parenting is both about teaching them what is right and also about you avoiding sin and idolatry because those things will also teach your children whether we want them to or not I also love this text because it is seeking to get the children of Israel to think about future generations Moses wanted the children of Israel to enter both enter and then to remain in the land in order for this to happen the children and the grandchildren needed to be raised in the love and knowledge of the Lord and this is true for us today here at Shoreline if we want to have a lasting gospel impact in this area for the sake of Christ we must dedicate ourselves to raising our children in the love and knowledge of the

[43:48] Lord right we're not we're not gonna last that long right and so as God's people like let's take ownership of this area for future generations by raising our children to know and love God and obviously through his grace for all these reasons Shoreline is starting a class on family worship next week in this class we will seek to unpack the call to teach our children and develop practical tools to equip ourselves to do the very thing that this text is telling us to do so please consider joining more details in the email all right I'm almost done I promise another thing that we learn about faithfulness that the things that we're called to do after we've recognized what we've received is to watch our souls diligently and to turn from idols idolatry is loving anything or anyone more than God and idolatry can be sneaky and subtle therefore we must keep our souls diligently the word diligently here connotates both intentionality and consistency so I encourage each of you to develop patterns and habits of soul watching know that this is also best done in community because we can be so blind to ourselves sometimes but we want to be diligent to watch our souls because we can get off paths so quick and that's what happened to children of Israel and that's why all the way throughout this text he's like don't forget don't forget remember teach your kids that helps you remember don't forget right watch your souls and if you are in a place where maybe you've drifted from the Lord right and you're full on or maybe you don't even know but you're seeking after idolatry remember what the text said turn to him and he will be merciful he will not leave you or forsake you right and so if you're in a place where you're kind of off the rails turn to him he's merciful he is faithful and he is powerful and he is good so please take some time this week to consider what it means for you to keep watch over your soul and finally the last encouragement from this text be careful not to forget God's ways so that you might maintain a fear of the Lord we are so prone to forget and when we forget what

[46:10] God is like and what he has done for us faithfulness to him gets very difficult so shoreline fight for faithfulness by battling to know and love the character of God and allow that knowledge to fuel your love for him which will produce a desire to act faithfully a dearly father Lord we thank you for what you've done God we sit here just amazed that you the God of the universe the holy God the unique God the maker and sustainer of all things would choose to come into our lives and pluck us out of darkness and bring us into your glorious life God I pray that by your grace you would help that truth to sink in so that our hearts could be in passion for you and filled with all the strength that we need to act faithfully and to live lives that honor you to be instruments in your hand so that the world around us can see and know your love amen ending ending ending