Good morning, my name is Chris, for those of you who are here for the first time.
It's exciting to start a new year together.
Well done if you've made it this morning.
Some of you may be bleary-eyed this morning, but I love New Year in Hong Kong because you
actually get two New Years, which is great because if you've made all your New Year's
resolutions and then broken them, by the end of January, it's okay, you've still got another
chance, right?
Because you can start it in.
And for some of us, we're going to be going to a wedding.
The New Year's going to start with a wedding of Dan and Soda, Soda who work with the youth
here.
Tomorrow's their wedding day.
It's an amazing way to start the New Year.
And I've been thinking quite a lot about this idea of the difference between New Year's
resolutions and wedding vows because I'll be doing the ceremony tomorrow.
And it's very interesting because you see, wedding vows are what we call covenantal, okay?
They're relational.
They're relational expression of unbreakable promises and commitment to one another, which
if you do break them, has relational consequences.
Whereas resolutions, they're just kind of personal.
They're just goals that you want to meet for yourself, things that you want to achieve.
And if you don't achieve them, then you just feel a little bit guilty, a little bit regretful
that you only went to the gym three times in the last year.
And then you hope, maybe this year, it will be the year where I go five times.
But covenantal wedding vows, you've got to kind of live them out day by day.
You can't just kind of put them on the shelf for another year.
Otherwise, what happens is what I call relationship creep comes in.
You don't mean to, but little bit over little bit, time after time, you just kind of stop
pedaling on the marriage bike.
You freewheel.
You coast.
You kind of hope that your bike will continue while I focus on other things, like work,
like kids.
And every so often, I ask Fiona, my wife, how am I doing as a husband?
How am I doing?
How can I love you better in this relationship that we're in?
Because my tendency is to get relationship creep.
But I wonder, are you ever like that with God?
Are you ever like that with God?
And we're going to be looking at the book of Deuteronomy over the next eight weeks.
And it's appropriate for us to start this new year looking at this book, because this book
is really all about covenant vows, not marriage covenant vows, but vows between God and his people.
Between God and us, and what he wants us to be.
And Deuteronomy, have your passage in front of you.
Keep it open, because we'll be just looking through it a little bit.
Deuteronomy is basically Moses preaching his last sermon.
Okay?
It's a sermon.
It's a long sermon.
You'll be glad Moses isn't preaching to you today, because it's 34 chapters long, this
sermon.
Okay?
But it is a sermon.
And these are his final words to the people.
It's generation 2.0, who are Israel standing on the edge of the promised land.
Okay?
Just picture it.
They've taken 40 years to get from Egypt to this place.
Their parents, who God had called to enter in the land, failed to do so.
And basically, in the passage, in verse 2, it says, it's only an 11 days journey, but it
took them 40 years to get where they were, because they failed, the parents had failed
to trust God.
And now, it's the kids' turn.
And they're on the land.
They're standing there, and Moses is going to say, your future is dependent, not on how
great you guys are, but whether you remember the covenant vows that you have made as a people.
Whether you forget or remember who God is.
And maybe, let me just frame what we mean by these covenant vows in words similar to what
Dan and Soda are going to say tomorrow.
Something like this.
The covenant would go, I, God, who rescued you out of Egypt, take you, Israel, to be my
people.
I will love you, bless you, protect and provide for you, and be faithful to you as long as
you shall live.
That's my promise to you.
And then, the flip side is, now Israel, and you can imagine them kind of standing there.
Now, Israel, now my people, now Watermark, do you take God to be your God?
Do you promise to love him, honor him, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in
sickness and in health, forsaking all others, be faithful only to him for as long as you
shall live?
That's the covenant.
And so, Deuteronomy begins with four words.
These are the words.
And that's the title of the book in Hebrew, of this book of Deuteronomy.
These are the words.
This book, this sermon was to be placed every time when Israel came to worship to be reminded
of what they committed to, this covenant.
So, we're going to have a little look into this book, and I want to talk about three things
today.
Even as we start this new year, and we think, where am I in my relationship with God?
And where do I want to go this year?
Three things.
Move on, look back, look forward.
Okay?
Move on, look back, look forward.
The first thing.
Move on.
Moses, the first thing he does to prepare people for going into their future, for going into
the promised land, is remind them God is always taking his people on a journey.
Okay?
He's always taking his people on a journey.
Verse 6, he says, the Lord our God said to us at Horeb.
Now, Horeb is a name for Mount Sinai, where the Ten Commandments were given.
Where this covenant, this marriage ceremony was given.
He says, you've stayed long enough at this mountain.
They'd been 14 months there.
They'd grown comfortable.
They'd settled down in their nice luxury tents.
And now, God says, it's time to move on.
You've got to move on.
See, I've promised you a land.
I'm going to bring you into a new place, into a new future.
And Moses is basically recalling this, because he knows from the past 40 years, the tendency
for people, the people, is when change comes, when God says, I want you to move on, is they
start getting afraid.
They start wanting to stay back where they're comfortable by themselves.
They wanted to retreat.
They wanted to return back to Egypt.
And because of that, they'd spent 40 years just wandering aimlessly round and round and
round, a journey which should have taken 11 days, took 40 years.
You know, in London, there's, I remember a few years ago, there's this ring road around
London called the M25, okay?
It's, on the news one day, there was an 82-year-old driver who had, who was found six miles away
from where he started, still behind the wheel of a car.
Police were called, because 30 hours traveling on this road, he was still traveling after
30 hours, one journey which should have taken him one hour.
And the police were called, and when they finally found him, he said, I just got a little
bit lost.
30 hours.
That's what happened to Israel, but that's so often what can happen to us in our own
spiritual life.
We can go round and round in circles, wandering aimlessly.
Maybe we want to retreat and stay comfortable when God is saying, I want to move you on.
And for Christians, we don't stand between a physical wilderness and a promised land, but
there's a wilderness of the world in which we live in, and a promised land of a new creation,
of a heaven that God is taking us to.
And in between, God is saying, I'm taking you on a journey to be more like me, to love
me, to reflect me, to grow, to honor me, to be more patient, loving, gracious, self-controlled
in this relationship.
And you're only going to become more like that if you move on.
Now, if you want to move towards a goal of being more like Jesus, and that is the goal
for every Christian, that's part of the covenant.
Change is necessary.
You can't stay at the mountain you're at.
To grow, change must happen.
You know, Hong Kong used to be a fishing village.
Look at it now.
Now, change happens.
The forest you see outside used to just be a seed.
The baby, the teenager you had was once a baby.
For some of you, it's going to go in teenager.
Change equals growth if you trust God.
But often, we want to stay where we are because change also means we lose something.
It's painful.
It reviles effort.
If you think of ever having to move a flat, there's a cost of time and money and effort.
But it's always worth moving on to the place God is wanting to take you on.
So let me ask you a question.
What is the mountain that you need to move on from this year to be more like Jesus, to move into the future that God has for you?
Some of us, our faith is stagnant.
It's like a stagnant pond, you know.
And that stagnant pond is a breeding ground for disease and death.
A moving river is a breeding ground for life and vitality.
But many of us, we come to church on Sundays, we listen to sermons, we even read our Bible and pray.
But our faith has become mechanical.
It's just routine.
It's religion without passion.
You know, I don't know if you've ever watched a child taking one of the trams down on Hong Kong Island and looking out of the window.
I don't know if you've seen this.
But I've seen it where you look on the child's face and they're kind of like this awestruck excitement.
They're like, billboard, bus, bus, like car, car.
And I'm on there looking at it thinking, that's a car.
I've seen cars before, right?
That's, you know, I'm so adult that I look at these things and I think, why are you so excited about that?
You know, I'm bored.
There's a much greater tram ride on somewhere else.
And, you know, some of us have been so long in church that we're very adult in our faith.
That honestly, deep down, we kind of know the answer is Jesus, right?
You know, what's the question?
Answer Jesus.
You know, you pray, you're nice, you don't murder anybody.
Yes.
But we know the tram ride of how it works, right?
Yes, you know.
She knows.
She's excited.
See?
There you go.
You know the tram ride.
But actually, you don't have that childlike wonder and excitement and that enjoyment and delight of the promises of God,
a sweetness of his presence any longer.
Yeah, you may have had it in the past.
You may have stepped out in boldness in the past to trust Christ.
But now, things have just gone a little bit stagnant.
You'd be more excited by meeting the CEO of a Fortune 500 company than meeting the CEO of the universe.
I wonder if that's you.
Because if that's you this year, God is saying, I want to move you on.
I don't want you to stay at this mountain any longer.
You've stayed long enough there.
And the place that we start, if that's, you know honestly that that's where you're at.
The place where you start is by coming down on your knees and saying, God, Father, I need you to warm up my cold heart.
To warm up this heart until it's blazing hot for you.
Every day to be praying that until that spark lights.
Some of us need that fire warmed up by getting up and getting baptized this year.
Because you've said, I'm a Christian, but you've never made that public commitment.
And God will say, this year is a time to move on and to change.
Some of us need to move on because we've kept holding on to this overriding sense that God is out there to punish us.
Times have been hard.
Things have been difficult.
On the outside, we're a nice Christian.
But on the inside, we feel guilty for every failure we've made.
We wallow in that guilt.
And we've just been stuck there for a long time.
You know, you've got shame on your back like a rock-filled backpack.
And it crushes you.
Some of you, that's you.
And the thing is, no one who ever lives under condemnation and guilt ever lives obediently to Christ.
Did you know that?
Because Christ is looking for that relationship of love and longing.
And if you think that God is there, always about to hit you over the head for what you've done wrong,
that's not going to incite love and desire and longing for him.
And Christ says, you've stayed long enough at this mountain.
Come to the fountain of my grace and receive the forgiveness that my grace brings.
There is cleansing for you.
If that's you, there is cleansing for you today.
Bought by Christ on the cross.
And he says, lay down that backpack at my cross and go free this year.
It's time to move on.
You've stayed long enough for this mountain.
I don't know what your mountain is.
But God says, I want to move you on.
C.S. Lewis said this.
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird.
It would be a jolly sight harder for a bird to learn to fly while remaining an egg.
We are like eggs at present.
And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg.
We must be hatched or go bad.
What he's saying is a church, God, like a good father, wants to hatch us to be more and more like himself.
And he doesn't want us just to be nice, ordinary Christians who go about doing the routine.
He wants us to get serious about the relationship with him and to chase after him and say,
I'm not just interested in making resolutions about reading my Bible more, praying more,
and then feeling guilty that I haven't done it enough.
He wants a covenant relationship where you look back at your vows and you say,
I want to move on with you this year, God.
I want to move on with you this year.
So he's going to bring circumstances in your life.
What's the mountain in your life that you've got to move on from?
Because he wants to do that.
So that's the first thing, move on.
Second thing, look back.
You see, moving on with God
is not a resolution.
Because it depends not on your personal willpower and effort.
It depends more on his faithfulness to get you through than on your ability to be faithful to him.
You see, what Moses does at the moment of decision,
he tells the people to look back at the past performance of God.
He rehearses the promise he gave them.
Verse 21.
He says,
See, the Lord your God has set the land before you.
Go up, take possession,
as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has told you.
Do not fear or be dismayed.
God's the one who initiated this.
God's the one who's promised it.
He's promised to give them a good land.
And God has promised,
and he's kept his word.
Because you see verse 25,
the spies go in and they say,
Wow, it's a good land.
It's amazing.
God wasn't lying.
But they rebel.
Okay?
They rebel.
Verse 26.
They would not go up.
Verse 27.
They say,
Because God hated us.
He brought us out of the land of Egypt to destroy us.
Verse 28.
They say,
The people are taller and greater than we.
And then Moses says to them,
Listen, God goes before you.
He fights for you.
You've seen what he did in Egypt.
He's going to fight.
You've seen how God carried you.
And yet, in spite of all of this,
they didn't believe God.
How is it that you can experience God's goodness and faithfulness
and still be reluctant to obey him?
Because if you're like me,
that is actually just what I'm like so often.
You see, they'd forgotten who God was.
They'd forgotten what he'd done for them.
They'd forgotten that he'd been like this father who,
from the beginning, he'd carried them.
You know, like a father carrying a lost child on their back
and walking with them, carrying them back home.
That's what he'd done for them,
moving them all the way to where they were today.
But they'd forgotten that.
And then suddenly, there's some big people,
bigger than Eric, here in front of them.
Just imagine a room full of Eric's,
standing in front of you,
and you're looking up at them.
That's what they got to.
And they'd forgotten who was behind them,
beside them, before them,
which was a God who was far bigger than even Eric is.
And one commentator says this,
he says,
to experience God in their history
was not sufficient for the people.
You know, it's not enough to just have experienced God
two years ago, three years ago, four years ago.
That's not enough.
They had to be constantly reminded of that experience
in order to overcome their anxieties,
which tended to blot out their memory.
Okay?
Do you ever get that memory block?
Look, I constantly,
I have this delete button in my mind.
Every day, God does something.
He provides for me.
You know, Fiona and I,
we look back at the year yesterday.
So every New Year's Eve,
we look back,
we remember the faithfulness of God to us
over the whole year.
We write it down.
We put it down.
You know what happens?
A week later,
I remember back the conversations
that I was worried about
and God brought me through,
the situations that I've struggled with
and he brought me through.
And then I come straight to a new situation
and delete button,
forgotten everything about who's with me
and God being with me.
And I'm panicking and I'm stressed.
But imagine if your six-year-old child,
every day,
you provide food on the table for them,
every single day,
every single day.
One day,
you come home,
you're just five minutes late
and you see them
and they're at the door,
they're putting on their coat,
they're stressed out.
They're saying,
I've got to go to park and shop.
I've got to buy my own food.
God,
because you were five minutes late
and I don't know whether
you're going to provide for me.
If you were that parent,
how would you feel?
Would that be hurtful
that they didn't trust you
knowing that you were good
and that you would provide?
And don't you think God is grieved
when so many times
I come across the obstacles
and face those things in my way
and I forget to look back
and see what he's done
for all of these years,
all of this time
and I forget who is with me
and I get stressed
and I panic
and I say,
I've got to deal with it by myself.
You see,
if you're going to move on this year,
you have to look back
and remember
because you're going to face giants,
you're going to face things
which come in front of you
and if you're relying on yourself
to face the giant,
you know,
people who think
they can do it solo,
there will come a time
where there's a giant
too big for you
and then you'll stress.
Do you know,
people,
I don't know if you've done this,
if you've done teamwork
with somebody
and there's somebody
who just relies on themselves,
think they can do it
by themselves.
You know,
when somebody's part of a team,
when somebody's part
of a relationship
and they think
they can go solo,
they may get a project done,
they may even get
and achieve what they want to
but in their stress
and self-reliance,
they sabotage the relationship.
Have you ever seen that?
I've seen that all the time
but that's what we do
with our covenant relationship
with God.
This year,
you may have projects,
you may have plans,
you may have things
that you want to achieve
but you could achieve them
and sabotage your relationship
with God
if you're not looking back
to Him
and trusting Him.
There was a situation
in the New Testament
giants of persecution
were causing some Christians
to wonder
whether they could
really trust God
and they would begin
to drift away,
relationship creep
had come in
and in Hebrews chapter 12,
the writer tells Christians
this,
he says,
let us lay aside
every weight
and sin
which clings so closely
and let us run
with endurance
the race
that is set before us,
looking to Jesus,
the founder
and perfecter
of our faith
who for the joy
that was set before Him
endured the cross
despising the shame
and is seated
at the right hand
of the throne of God.
Consider Him.
You see,
when you're going to face
those things this year,
like your resolutions,
you know 92%
of resolutions
people never keep them
because what happens
is you come across
a giant
and you kind of give up.
Something happens.
But your resolve
to walk with God
this year
is primarily
dependent
not on your resolution
and your will
because that's going to flag.
Your willpower
at some point
is going to wane
but it's more dependent
on the one
who has already
run the race
for you.
It says,
let us run
with endurance.
You're going to have
to endurance
in this 2017.
There's all kinds
of stuff that's going
to happen.
Great stuff,
challenging stuff.
But there'll be times
when you feel like
giving up
and it's only
as you look back
and you see
that Jesus
had more resolve
in His relationship
with you
than you have ever
had with Him.
He is more committed
to you
than you have ever
been committed
to Him.
You see,
He went through
the greatest giant.
Moses passed
through the Red Sea.
Jesus passed
through sin
and death.
He overcame
the greatest giant.
Nobody in history
has ever overcome
death.
You might have
overcome
your rental payments.
You might have
overcome
your finding a job
but you've never
overcome death.
You've never overcome
sin by yourself.
Jesus did that.
He initiated
your relationship
with Him.
He's going to
carry on doing it.
He's brought you
to this point
and that's the point
where you have to
keep looking at Him
if you want to
move on with Him.
Preacher Charles Spurgeon
said this,
We shall never find
happiness by looking
at our prayers,
our doings,
our feelings.
It is what Jesus is,
not what we are,
that gives rest
to the soul.
If we would at once
overcome Satan
and have peace with God,
it must be by looking
unto Jesus.
If you've been
in the church,
you know that here
but God is saying,
have you seen,
do you ponder,
do you regularly
come back
when you're lying
on your bed at night?
Do you recall
and consider His mercy,
His grace,
His endurance for you?
Because He's committed
to this relationship
with you.
And you may have
giants this year
of death,
of cancer,
of sickness,
of things in life
but He is bigger
than all of them.
But there's a warning
in this.
There's a warning.
The people of Israel
were very religious
but they didn't
trust in God.
Some of us think
because we've been
in church a long time,
we're Christians
but being in McDonald's
doesn't make you
a hamburger
even if you stay there
a long time.
and you know,
some of you
have never said,
God,
I'm in for this
covenant wedding
relationship with you.
Some of you
have never said that
because you don't
want to commit.
You want the religion
but you don't
want the commitment
and God is challenging
you in 2017.
You know,
when you come to death,
the biggest giant
you'll have to face,
death.
If you don't go
all in for him,
you may have to face
that giant by yourself
because there's no one
else to rely on
if you don't rely on him.
And the promised land
of heaven
and new creation,
God will say
you cannot enter
because you cannot
overcome that giant
of death by yourself.
And if you know
you've only just been
a religious Christian,
God will say to you,
this year is a year
you ought to move on
and trust him.
Ask forgiveness
for your self-reliance
and turn to him
because he's there
running after you
and he will give you
the strength
to move forward.
Move on,
look back,
last thing,
look forward.
God's not just
wanting you to look back
to where you've come from,
he's wanting to look forward
to where he's taking you.
Because Moses does that,
he speaks,
Moses says,
the Lord goes before you,
the first generation
didn't listen.
Verse 38,
he says,
I'm going to raise up
someone else.
I'm going to raise up
someone else who's going
to lead you,
who's going to cause you
to inherit the land.
His name's Joshua.
He's faithful
when no one else
is faithful.
He's going to move you
in to being the people
that you always wanted
to be.
But you see,
the people were unfaithful.
The people were unfaithful.
Even in chapter 31,
Moses predicts it.
But where the people
are unfaithful,
there's another leader
who comes
who is totally faithful.
That's Jesus
we've been talking about.
And that verse
in Hebrews says,
he's not just
the founder
of your faith.
He's not just the one
who blazes a trail
to make you
come through
to where you are today.
He's the one
who's going to perfect
your faith.
He's going to move you on.
He's going to change you
into the person
you want to be.
You just have to keep
your eyes on him.
Because this year,
God is going to move you
into situations
which are going to be
too big for you to handle.
As a church,
he'll call us out
on a mission
which we feel
inadequate and ill-equipped.
He's going to call you
to people in your family,
to people in your offices,
to people around us
and we will feel like,
I don't know what to do.
I don't know how to do it.
There'll be opportunities.
There'll be challenges
and God's challenge to us
is don't fear.
Don't let fear
prevent you from moving on
into the gifts
that I've given you.
Don't let past failure
prevent you from moving on.
Look forward
and see that he's
not just behind you
but he's going before you.
He's already made the way.
He's going to bring you
through 2017.
More than the world economy,
whatever happens
in the world economy,
whatever happens
in your job,
he's going to bring you through
and he wants to use
every situation
to grow your faith
to be more like him.
I don't know if you've ever
been rock climbing.
Anyone been rock climbing?
Anyone been rock climbing
not on a climbing wall
but actually on a real rock?
Two people.
Three people.
Okay.
Yeah, the rock climbing
in Hong Kong is so-so
but
my best friend
is a rock climbing instructor
and when you're,
he tells me,
when you're on a rock face,
you always have a lead climber
who goes up
in front of you.
He basically
takes the route
and what he does
every so often,
he puts an anchor
into the rock
and then he attaches
a rope to it
and then he carries
on climbing up
and he basically
paves the way
for you to move up
the rock face
and what you have
to do then
is you attach
your rope
to the anchors
that he's put on there
and then you climb up
and you just keep
attaching your rope
to what he's already made
and you'll be fine
because it's the one
who goes first
who takes the risk.
Well, when Moses says,
Joshua's going to lead you in,
when in Hebrews
it says,
Jesus is the founder,
the trailblazer,
that's what the word means,
the pioneer of your faith,
it's he's the one
who has already made the way
through 2017.
He already knows
where he's taking you.
He's already been up
and down 2017
quite a number of times
so he knows this pretty well
and I don't know
what your fears are,
there's so much uncertainty,
there's so many things
where I don't know
what's going on
in your world
but there's something
I do know.
When you get to the end
of 2017,
he's going to be there
and his anchors
of his promises
are still going to be
as sure as they ever were
and as long as you're
holding on to those anchors,
you're going to walk
through 2017
and you're going to be growing
and you're going to be moving
more and more like himself
and you're going to look back
and you're going to think,
how on earth did I do that?
And you'll look back
at the end of 2017,
you'll see,
it was only because
of the faithfulness of God
and I just keep holding
my anchor on to him,
I keep trusting him
with whatever situation
he brings me
this year
and you'll be fine
because he's already
got there.
He's already into 2020
and beyond.
He's already into eternity
actually.
So let me leave us
just with a couple
of thoughts.
This year,
are you all in
for this covenant
relationship with God?
will you stay
as an unhatched egg
or will you say,
I want to move on?
Some people say to me,
I wish I had your faith.
The Bible says,
you do have faith.
There is nobody in this room
who doesn't have faith.
In fact,
you do not need to grow
in faith this year
because you always have
the same amount of faith.
The issue is not
the amount of faith
you have,
it's where you put
your faith.
That's the issue
this year.
So will you put it
in the lead climber
who's already gone ahead
because otherwise
you're climbing solo
and if you climb solo,
there's going to be a point
where you just get
stuck on the rock
and if some of you
are stuck on the rock
right now,
you know the way back?
It's just saying,
Jesus,
I want to hook back
onto your rope.
I want to come back
to you.
Forgive me
that I've been away.
If Apple or Microsoft
or Alibaba this year
was to say,
I think we've grown enough,
we're happy as we are,
you'd say,
you're fools.
You'll die
if you stay
where you are.
Why as Christians
are we so often
happy to say,
I'm okay as I am.
This year,
consider Jesus.
This year,
look at Him,
His promises,
His faithfulness
and we need
to be a community
which is constantly
reminding each other
of Him
throughout whatever's
going to come
and you know what?
It's going to be
an amazing year
with Jesus.
Let me pray.
Father,
I just,
even as I look back
over 2016
and think of
Your faithfulness
and look forward
into 2017
and there's so many things
that I just don't know,
don't know what's
going to happen.
and yet,
Father,
You are faithful.
I pray that as a church
we would get serious
about our relationship
with You
and we'd realize
that that doesn't mean
living off a past experience.
That means running
day by day,
remembering who You are,
remembering Your promises
to us
and stepping out
in what You are calling us
to do this year.
I pray,
Lord,
we'd not stay stagnant,
whether it's
with the people around us,
whether there are relationships
we need to get right,
whether there are
just our relationship
with You
we need to just
pursue more.
I just pray
that You'd help us
to see
Your goodness,
Your love,
that You go behind us
and before us
and we would look back
at the grace
that You show us
and look forward
to the place
You're taking us,
which is to be
more and more like You.
In Jesus' name,
Amen.