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My name is Wes Selke and this is my daughter Nora.
I'm an elder here at Christ Church and we're part of the Oakland community.
Today's scripture reading is from the book of Deuteronomy chapter 29 verses 1 to 6, 9 to 19, and 29 as printed in the liturgy.
These are the terms of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab
in addition to the covenant that he had made with them in Hora.
Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them,
Your eyes have seen all that the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials, and to all his land.
With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those signs and great wonders.
But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind that understands, or eyes that see, or ears that hear.
Yet the Lord says,
It says,
You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the Lord your God,
A covenant the Lord is making with you this day and sealing with an oath to confirm you this day as his people,
That he may be your God as he promised.
As he promised you and as he swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
I am making this covenant with its oath, not only with you who are standing here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God,
but also with those who are not here today.
You yourselves know how he lived in Egypt and how he passed through the countries on the way here.
You saw among them their detestable images and idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold.
Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose hearts turn away from the Lord our God
and go and worship the gods of those nations.
Make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.
When such a person hears the words of the oath and they invoke a blessing on themselves,
thinking, I will be safe even though I persist in going in my own way,
they will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry.
The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever,
that we may follow all the words of this law.
The grass withers and the flowers fade.
The Lord our God stands forever.
Good morning, Christ Church.
If you're new with us, my name is Jonathan.
I'm one of the pastors here.
It's a delight to have you with us.
The question I'm asking myself a lot these days is,
where are we right now?
As we look at our own lives as individuals, as families, as a congregation,
where are we right now?
As we look at our city, our nation, our society, where are we?
It's an important question.
It reminds me of the story of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.
They decided to go on a camping trip.
And after dinner, they enjoyed a bottle of wine.
And then they laid down for the night.
They went to sleep.
And some hours later, Holmes awoke.
And he nudged his faithful friend and he said,
Watson, look up at the sky.
And tell me what you see.
And Watson said, I see millions of stars.
And Holmes asked, well, what does that tell you?
And Watson pondered a minute.
He said, astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies
and potentially billions of planets.
Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo.
Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three.
Theologically, I can see that God is all-powerful and that we are small and insignificant.
Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.
What does it tell you, Holmes?
And Holmes was silent for a minute and then he spoke,
Watson, you idiot.
Someone has stolen our tent.
What do you see?
You know, you're probably going to get a different answer based on who it is
and their varying understandings and perspectives of things.
What do you see?
What do you make of all this?
Where are we right now?
You know, what I see is that we're coming out of 18 months of a ridiculously disruptive pandemic.
Amen?
12 of those months, we were in total lockdown.
The past six months, we've been reopening everything, including Christchurch.
We've been looking around for six months going, okay, who's even here?
What do we have to work with?
What are we doing now?
And I'm asking my question as a pastor, what are we going to do in the next six months?
Where are we headed?
And I hope that you'll come join us next Sunday for our congregational meeting
to get more insight into where we're going.
But what I can see over the next six months is a renewing of Christchurch.
A renewing of Christchurch.
And I think there's a quantitative renewal of relationships that has to happen.
All these connections to be formed among people that are regular, people who are new,
people who just don't know one another very well.
How do we make weak ties into strong ties relationally and quantitatively?
But I think that's actually the easier part.
The harder part about renewing Christchurch is this qualitative building up of our life with God.
And I'm so grateful today for Deuteronomy 29 because that's the theme.
If you were to open your pew Bibles in front of you, you would see at the top of this chapter,
the heading says, Renewal of the Covenant.
Renewal of the Covenant.
Another word for renewal is revival.
Revival of the Covenant.
A revival is a season where the ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit are greatly intensified
to renew our spiritual vitality.
And so I want to think together for a minute about the dynamics of covenant renewal,
the dynamics of spiritual revival.
And what I want to say this morning is that covenant renewal is relational, personal, and sacrificial.
Covenant renewal is relational, personal, and sacrificial.
I'm going to start with covenant renewal being relational.
Have you ever had an experience in your life where something was easy to start but hard to sustain?
Anybody experienced this?
Maybe you started a company.
Maybe you started a marriage.
Maybe you started a church.
Maybe you started a family and had some kids.
And yeah, there were challenges in that launching phase,
but you had passion, you had energy, you had sheer grit to kind of get you through those early stages.
But, you know, you get 10 years in, 20 years in, 40 years in, you start facing complexities.
You start facing challenges that you just could never anticipate.
And so businesses find it helpful to refresh their vision and their values.
Couples find it helpful to renew their vows of marriage.
Churches find it helpful to reaffirm their beliefs and their practices.
And that's really the situation here with the people of God.
It's been 40 years since they experienced the liberating power of God in being rescued from Egypt.
It's been 40 years since they were at Horeb or Mount Sinai and experienced God's covenant love.
It's been 40 years since they received the Ten Commandments and the Torah.
And 40 years is a long time.
I'm 43 years old.
And a lot has happened in that span of time.
A lot can happen in 40 years.
And here the people of God are on the plains of Moab, on the edge of the promised land.
And they're being invited and indeed challenged to renew their covenant with the living God.
And what we see here is that that covenant relationship is vertical.
The covenant is a vertical relationship with the Lord.
Look at verse 2.
It says,
Your eyes have seen all that the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials, and to all his land.
With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those signs, and great wonders.
When you were experiencing an oppressive bondage, you then experienced me as your liberating God.
That's what it says.
And this tells us that the gospel is not merely a good idea.
The gospel is good news.
The gospel is news about historical givens, about the wonderful works of God, about the mighty acts of God's salvation for us.
And it shows us that this covenant relationship is initiated outside of us and above us.
That a covenant is created not by us, but by a prior reality of loving kindness that wants us in a relationship.
It goes on in verse 5.
And it says,
It says,
And so that's why when you get to verse 9, it says,
This assumes that Yahweh has already acted to save his people by his grace.
That they are a people grasped and held by the strong and caring hands of the Lord.
And so these terms of the covenant are not the condition of a relationship.
They're the consequence of a relationship.
They are not entering in to obey the Ten Commandments to get God's love.
They're entering in to obey those commands because they've already received God's love.
And they want to show God how grateful they are in their obedience.
Does that make sense?
You guys tracking with me?
This covenant relationship is a vertical relationship with the Lord.
But also the covenant is a horizontal relationship with the people of God.
Look at verse 10.
It says,
This is a detailed list of the members of the people of God.
In fact, it's the most inclusive list in all of the Old Testament.
It's got leaders and followers.
Men and women.
Old people and babies.
Those born in Israel and those who are resident aliens.
Those who are rich and those who do the lowliest of jobs.
Chopping wood.
Carrying water.
Everyone is included.
And no matter who stands above whom in daily life.
All of them are on level ground because they're in the presence of the Lord himself.
And it says in verse 14.
It says,
I am making this covenant with its oath.
Not only with you who are standing here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God.
But also with those who are not here today.
This covenant transcends time and space.
It includes future generations who are not yet born.
Which means that it involves you and me.
We're the ones not yet standing here today that are being addressed.
And here is the heart.
The essence of the covenant in verse 12.
It says,
You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the Lord your God.
A covenant that the Lord is making with you this day.
And sealing with an oath to confirm you this day as his people.
That he may be your God.
As he promised you.
And as he swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
I will be your God.
And you will be my people.
That is the essence of a covenant relationship.
You will be my people of the promise.
You will be the children of Abraham.
You will be the heirs of that blessing through which all the nations of the world will be blessed.
And all of us are here in this covenant included together.
This reminds me of the words of John Donne.
That great poet and pastor.
He said,
No man is an island of itself.
Every man is a piece of the continent.
A part of the main.
Everybody is a part of this covenant.
It reminds me of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
When he wrote his letter from a Birmingham jail.
I think he was thinking in covenantal structures in terms of reality.
He said,
All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.
Tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly affects all.
Indirectly, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.
And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.
This is the interrelated structure of reality.
It's a covenant.
A covenant relationship.
And there's this organic, collective, holistic relationship that, yes, involves me, but really is about we.
Yes, it involves every little thread, but it's really about the whole tapestry.
Yes, it's about the different members of the body, but really it's about the healthy functioning of the whole body.
And you can see that here in verse 18.
Where it says,
Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations.
Make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.
When such persons hear the words of this oath and invoke a blessing on themselves, thinking,
I will be safe even though I persist in going my own way, they will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry.
This covenant says,
Do not let there be a root of bitter poison that could destroy the whole tree.
Jesus and the apostles use the language of watch out for a little yeast that can corrupt the whole batch of dough.
This covenant relationship with the Lord can be negatively influenced by one person, one family, one group of people that thinks to themselves,
It's no big deal if I just go my own way.
It's no big deal if I kind of blend the doctrine and ethics of the scriptures with the ideologies and the practices of Canaan.
It won't be a big deal.
If I just kind of relax my grip on these inconvenient truths that make me a little bit uncomfortable from our faith, all will be well.
And what this actually says in this covenant, that is a complete disaster.
Not just for you, but for us.
And we need to think this way because the covenant, we're told, is relational.
Covenant renewal is relational.
You guys tracking with me?
Covenant renewal is not only relational, it's also personal.
Covenant renewal is personal.
In verse 10, it says,
All of you are standing today in the presence of the Lord, your God.
This is a sober, serious, solemn moment of being koram deo, before the face of God.
They've been listening to Moses' final sermons in the last days of his life.
And in these sermons, Moses has been taking the Ten Commandments and he's been expounding them and illustrating them and applying them and saying,
This is the way.
This is the blueprint.
This is the guide for abundant life in the promised land.
And now it's time, having heard all of this teaching, to covenant together to live by the teaching.
And so every single individual here is going to take responsibility for their own relationship before God.
Their own relationship with God in the presence of God.
They're going to make an oath of allegiance.
They're going to swear their commitment to keep this covenant.
They say,
We are ready to be loyal to this gracious God.
We are fully aware of all the curses and all the disasters that will come down upon us for being disloyal to this God.
And so what do we see that God wants for us in this relationship?
He wants the relationship to be personal.
Listen to verse 17.
It says,
You saw among them, that is the Egyptians and all the nations they've just passed through.
You saw among them their detestable images and idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold.
Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations.
See, God wants the heart of each person turned toward him in worship.
And he's saying,
Look, you're entering into a context of endless distractions.
You're going into a land where you're going to be surrounded by attractive alternatives.
Silver and gold, shiny objects that are going to vie for your attention and turn your attention away from me and cause you to worship lesser things that are not worthy of your devotion.
Can you imagine living in a society, living in a place where there are these bright, shiny, luminous things wanting to control your attention and giving you a dopamine hit every time you pull it out of your pocket or off the shelf and do like this?
Can you imagine living in a society like that?
If you weren't at our August retreat, I said there that the average iPhone user touches his or her phone 2,617 times a day.
In contrast, the psalmist says,
I have set the Lord always before me.
What would my life be like if God touched my mind as often as I touch my phone?
Multi-billion dollar companies are asking themselves,
how do we consume as much of your time and attention as we possibly can?
One person said the tech industry is the largest, most standardized, and most centralized form of attentional control in human history.
So that continuous partial attention is now our new normal.
And don't get me wrong,
our technological devices are not the only idols in our lives that cause our hearts to turn away from the Lord.
They're just the most obvious.
They look around at everybody like this, bowing down, right, to their phones.
So Deuteronomy 29 is telling us how easy it is to turn our hearts away from devotion and love and worship to the Lord
as our highest good, as our sumum bonum.
And this is really a restatement of all the teaching of Deuteronomy.
That heart turn in verse 18 restates for us what we heard in Deuteronomy 5.
The Ten Commands.
What's the first of those Ten Commands?
You shall have no other gods before me.
But remember it says,
you, second person singular,
Jonathan, Barry, St. Clair,
you personally
should have no other gods
before me.
And then the next chapter,
and then the next chapter,
Deuteronomy 6,
is really a restatement of this heart turning away
or turning toward the Lord where it says,
hear, O Israel,
the Lord our God,
the Lord alone.
You,
second person singular,
you,
Jonathan,
Barry,
St. Clair,
you are to love the Lord your God
with all your heart,
with all your soul,
and with all your strength,
with all that you are
and all that you've got.
In the midst of this myriad of distractions
and all of these attention-grabbing,
attractive alternatives
that are telling you to put money
or sex or power at the center,
that are telling you to put your work
or your comfort
or approval
at the center of your life,
what we are being called to
in this covenant renewal
is for each person
and each family
and each group
to turn your heart toward the Lord
in worship.
One of the commentators
that I read this week,
he said,
Deuteronomy
is deeply aware
that Israel's faith
is in a context
of endless distractions
from covenantal faith.
The most likely candidates
for such seduction
are precisely those
who are comfortable
and complacent with God.
They are the ones
most susceptible
and most surely
to bring disaster
upon all of the community.
Seduction from covenant
happens among those
who turn a little bit
at a time
away from the Lord
because they are not vigilant.
What this is telling us
is that your personal
spiritual vigilance,
your personal habits
of the heart,
your personal engagement,
your personal quality
of life with the Lord
not only matters to God,
it matters to all of us
and our quality of life
as a church community.
And so the question
I'm asking is
how can I,
how can we
practically keep God
as our first love?
what are the predictable patterns,
what are the healthy habits
that will regularly
revitalize our relationship
with the Lord
so that He is my love supreme?
And I want to say
you've made a good start today.
You've begun the first day
of your week
here turning your heart
toward the Lord in worship
which is the fourth commandment,
right?
Observe the Sabbath
and keep it holy to the Lord
and that is a great start.
George Herbert,
the poet,
he says
seven whole days
not one in seven
I will praise thee.
And so my question is
how will we worship God
seven whole days this week,
tomorrow
and the next day
and the day after that
and my simple question is
how will you start
the day tomorrow
when you wake up
in the morning?
I love this quote
from C.S. Lewis
in his book
Mere Christianity.
He said this in 1941.
He said
the real problem
of the Christian life
comes where people
do not usually look for it.
It comes the very moment
you wake up each morning.
All your wishes
and hopes for the day
rush at you
like wild animals.
And the first job
each morning
consists simply
in shoving them all back
and listening
to that other voice
and taking that other
point of view,
letting that other
larger,
stronger life
come rushing in
and so on
all day long
he says.
Around that same time
a man
this
Lewis was in England
a man named
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
in Germany
wrote these words
and he would later be
taken and killed
by the Nazis
but he said
the morning prayer
determines the day.
squandered time
of which we are ashamed
temptations to which
we succumb
weaknesses
and lack of courage
at work
disorganization
and lack of discipline
in our thoughts
and in our conversation
with other men
all have their origin
most often
in the neglect
of morning prayer.
Decisions demanded
by work
become easier
and simpler
where they are made
not in the fear
of men
but only
in the sight
of God.
My goal
this week
is to move
some of you
from nothing
to something
to move you
from investing
zero minutes
in your personal
relationship with the Lord
to five minutes
and then ten minutes
and fifteen minutes
to investing
one day of your week
to three days
then four days
then five days
of your week
and if you're a guest
with us today
we're not normally
this practical
or this
this prescriptive
but I'm just realizing
as a pastor
after 18 months
of pandemic life
that we desperately
need to reestablish
healthy habits
and predictable patterns
that are gonna give us
a life with God
and so I've given you
this handout
called morning prayer
as your insert
this morning
and I hope it will
equip you
with a tool
to help
keep God
as your first love
in your life
which is what
Deuteronomy
is all about
tomorrow morning
you're gonna engage
in many habits
you're not even
gonna be thinking about
hopefully you're gonna
take a shower
we hope
hopefully you're gonna
put on clothes
we hope
hopefully you're gonna
eat and brush
your teeth
and I wanna invite you
to create some space
and time
to pray
at least a portion
of this
half of it
just the first words
of it
would be an absolute
victory for us
I think
if we began
this practice
of morning prayer
a revival
would break out
at Christ Church
amen
covenant renewal
is relational
and it's
personal
for each one
of us
but the last thing
I wanna say
is covenant
relational
covenant renewal
is relational
personal
and it's sacrificial
you know
the sad
and tragic
story of the Bible
is that
God's people
fail over and over
to be the
covenant partners
that we swear
to be
right
we persist
in going
our own way
as it says
in verse 19
but the sweet
and triumphant
story of the Bible
is that though
we fail
God's covenant
love
never fails us
the Lord
would send
his own
eternal
and beloved
son
Jesus
to be
this faithful
Israelite
to be the one
true
human being
to do for us
what we cannot
do for ourselves
Jesus is the
only one
whose heart
does not
turn away
from the Lord
he's the only
one
who rather
had his heart
turned toward
the Lord
every moment
of every day
of his life
and when he came
to the end
of that beautiful
life
on the night
before he was
to be
crucified
he offered
us these
gifts
of bread
and wine
and he said
this broken
bread of my
body
reveals what
I've come
to do for you
in my
incarnate
person
and this
outpoured
wine
of my
blood
is showing
you what
I've come
to do for you
in my
atoning
work
and what
is the
word
that Jesus
uses
when he
gives us
this meal
he says
this is my
blood
of the
new
covenant
Jesus
is completing
the covenant
renewal
that began
with Israel
on the
plains
of Moab
when he
says
this blood
of the
covenant
is being
poured out
for the
forgiveness
of sins
you see
the Lord
knew
when he
entered
into
a covenant
with human
beings
like us
that it
would cost
him
dearly
that it
would be
an absolute
bloody
mess
but he
did it
anyway
because
he loves
us
he did
it knowing
that he
would take
all of the
curses
of our
breaking
of the
covenant
so that
we would
get all
the blessings
of his
keeping
the covenant
as if
we
ourselves
had kept
the covenant
Jesus
is going
to enter
in to
be torn
to pieces
the nails
the spears
the thorns
are going
to tear
him apart
why
so that
we can
have
what Paul
calls
the righteousness
peace
and joy
in the
Holy Spirit
all of our
hearts
turning away
from God
all of that
root
of bitter
poison
that destroys
the whole
thing
all of that
disaster
that results
when I persist
in going
my own way
all of that
will be poured
out on
Jesus
on his
cross
and this
is why
the apostle
Paul
is telling
us
in Galatians
3
he says
Christ
redeemed
us
by becoming
a curse
for us
he redeemed
us that
blessing
that the
blessing
given to
Abraham
might come
to us
through
him
do you
realize
what Jesus
has done
for you
in his
perfect
life
he
completely
fulfilled
the terms
of the
covenant
and he
earned
the covenant
blessing
so that
God
could love
you
absolutely
unconditionally
and in
his
sacrificial
death
he
completely
satisfied
all the
curses
of this
covenant
so that
he could
remove it
from anyone
who would
ask them
ask him
to take
it away
from them
and friends
do you know
what Jesus
was doing
in those
final moments
on his
cross
as he
was dying
for the
sins of
the world
he turned
his heart
and worshipped
toward the
Lord
as he
was writhing
in agony
he cried
out
father
into your
hands
I commit
my spirit
father
into your
hands
I commit
my spirit
it's a
prayer
Jesus
prayed
thousands
of times
it came
straight
out of
his
prayer
book
from
psalm
31
verse
five
father
into your
hands
I commit
my spirit
you know
we spend
most of our
time attempting
to get
our lives
out of
God's
hands
and into
our
hands
and in
this
dialogue
deep
in the
heart
of the
trinity
with
Jesus
on his
cross
he does
for us
what we
cannot
do
in this
one
last
confident
reckless
act
of faith
Jesus
willingly
exuberantly
commends
the purpose
of his
whole
life
and his
whole
work
into the
strong
loving
hands
of his
father
into your
hands
I commit
my spirit
and that
I hope
becomes the
prayer
for all
of us
who know
the
depths
which
Jesus
sacrificed
himself
to renew
this
covenant
for us
may it
become our
prayer
tomorrow
morning
and the
day after
that
father
into your
hands
I commit
my spirit
in the name
of the
father
son
and holy
spirit
amen
he
to pour
him
together
to
me
am
in the name