Reading: Deuteronomy 29:1-15. :19-21, 30:
Find neighbour’s name – needed later
My aim and vision for today’s teaching is to encourage you to renew your Christian commitment in the same way that the Children of Israel renewed the covenant with God.
We’re currently progressing through Deuteronomy – Today chapter 29.
Where were the children of Israel? <ppt>
Let’s remind ourselves of where the Children of Israel are at this moment
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poised on the edge of the promised land.
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God, through a wonderful miracle – got them out of Egypt where they were enslaved to an evil regime that was intent on exploiting them.
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At a place called Sinai (also called Horeb) God gave them through Moses the law – beginning with the 10 commandments he went on to outline how they should live as an expression of gratitude to God for his grace and rescue on them
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The crucial factor we must never forget about the giving of the law was this – it was much more than ‘law’ as we understand it and practice it
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It wasn’t merely a set of rigid rules imposed by a draconian God on his powerless minions – and backed up by threats if you earthlings don’t comply
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It was a covenant
what is a covenant? <ppt>
A covenant is a binding treaty where both sides enter into an agreement and both sides carry obligations
Israel promises to live by God’s standards and with their hearts focused on him (love the Lord with all your heart, soul and strength’)
God, (not ‘in return’ because that would be legalism) God promises, commits himself to be faithful to the children of Israel. To care for the and guide them, to bring them to a land ‘flowing with milk and honey’
There’s a wonderful description we encountered a few weeks ago:
– a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills;
Where are they now? in the desert
8:8 a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig-trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey;
Where are they now – dependent on manna which is wonderful, but must have become very tedious and as a diet.
8:9 a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills
The Lord is promising them incredible wealth compared with their present experience! “You will lack nothing”!
<ppt> A covenant is a binding agreement between two equal parties where each side promises to work for the benefit of the other
The covenant – binding promise – made between them had two parts.
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God promised to bless the Israelites by making them into the nation through whom the rest of the world could know God. In parallel the Israelites promised to love and obey the Lord in order to receive the physical and spiritual blessings God was going to bring.
That was Sinai – that was 40 years ago – and now they’re in Moab on the East of Jordan
By this time it was obvious to Moses, and to God, that this covenant needed renewing. God had kept his part, but the children of Israel’s commitment was beginning to slip.
So here in Deut 29, Moses is calling the people for a renewed commitment to the covenant they’d entered into
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I believe God is calling us to a renewed commitment to him too and later on I’m going to call us to renew our love for the Lord and our commitment to him.
So what does Moses do? – He calls the people together
v2Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them:
and gives them some vital messages:
don’t forget your history! (v4) <ppt>
:4 Your eyes have seen all that the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials and to all his land. 3 With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those signs and great wonders.
There were plagues –
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the land was overrun with frogs
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the crops were eaten by humongous swarms of locusts,
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the water supply became contaminated with blood etc
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ultimately the first born of every household died – unless you’d sacrificed a lamb and daubed its blood on your door-posts
Why were these significant to the covenant? – Because <ppt> only God could do that kind of thing There was no possible way the Israelites could have created or engineered them!
This was compelling evidence, if evidence was needed, that God was on their side. He was orchestrating events. They had someone fighting their corner who had power way beyond any opposition to Pharaoh the they could put up by themselves!
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Friends – that is the God we have on our side!
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And if we love him with heart soul and mind, HE will orchestrate events in our lives personally and in our church that will blow us away!
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We call this his ‘providence’ >>>
The trouble is, the children of Israel didn’t get it
4 But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear.
And the great danger in our day is that God is speaking and we get so embroiled in our own affairs that we fail to her him!
And that had happened to the C of I. They looked back on 40 years in the wilderness, wandering around like nomads.
Now it would be easy to view that period as a monumental waste of time, but that’s not how God sees it. He wants them to realise how faithful he’s been through this time.
5 Yet the Lord says, ‘During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness,
So even in the wilderness God was still guiding them – he never renegued on his side of the covenant!
<ppt> Only God could provide for you like that!
What is more he kept looking after them …
5 … your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet. 6 You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink.
He provided them with manna to eat and led them to places where they could find fresh water and just enough to get by on.
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Why did he do this? Because he wanted to shame them into submission? No way! …
<ppt> 6 … I did this so that you might know that I am the Lord your God.’
Even though you wander in the desert because of an act of disobedience, I still love you, I still care for you!
In a few minutes I’m going to give us a moment where we can renew our covenant with the Lord.
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And some of you are going to look back and say ‘Lord I’ve wasted so much time’
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Don’t look back on time like that! – Spiritually unproductive, maybe, but not wasted – because your God hasn’t let you down!
Beware of compromise! (v7) <ppt>
So at this point, God’s plan, and Moses vision, was to take all 12 tribes of Israel over the Jordan river to conquer and dwell in the land God had promise. But he hit a snag.
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Two and a half tribes didn’t want to come.
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Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh wanted to stay put.
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So instead of passing through this land, they had to conquer it.
7 When you reached this place, (in the desert) Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out to fight against us, but we defeated them. 8 We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh.
So even in this situation where the Israelites obedience to God was compromised, he still stuck with them, still prospered them and still gave them victory in battle.
We’re intended to notice this from the narrative: <ppt> Even when we blow it, God still keeps his side of the covenant.
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That’s no excuse to wilfully disobey him, but it does give me enormous hope!
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Even when Ian White fails, God doesn’t!
Turn to your neighbour and say “Even when <neighbour’s name> fails, God doesn’t!”
And there’s more! When God routed these two kings (Sihon and Og) he was showing that he can and will do this.
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He wanted them to say to themselves “if the Lord can rout these two, he can rout other kings we may find in the land itself!”
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For all of these people the time in Egypt was a distant memory – or no memory at all, so he has to show a new generation that he means business.
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So by defeating these two king the Lord was giving them solid evidence that he can do what he promised to do
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this was to stimulate their faith, to raise their expectations and draw out trust from the people.
<ppt> God’s given us his word so that we may have the joy of obeying it.
30:11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, ‘Who [on earth] will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it?’ 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, ‘Who [in their right mind] will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it?’ 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so that you may obey it.
Choose which way to go! (30:15) <ppt>
15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
I wonder how many of us here today, if faced with the same choice, would stand up and say ‘I’m with you Lord’
or if we look deep into our own should would have to admit that our part of the covenant with the Lord has slipped?
There was a time when you felt in your bones a passion and a fire to live for Jesus Christ. You didn’t need to work at it particularly – it was just there!
You said ‘Lord I’ll go anywhere for you’ ‘I’ll do anything you want me to’
but then something happened.
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It may be a life event that you’ blamed God for
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it may be a tragedy that wasn’t your fault
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It may be a sin that was your fault
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or it may just be a gradual diluting of your spiritual fire
but whatever it is, it’s left you today lukewarm and passionless.
In just the same way the God called people in Moses day to renews their covenant, so he calls us today.
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And not just a few. I believe there are many of us here in this room whom the Lord is calling to renew our covenant with him.
I looked up ‘renew’ in my dictionary to discover it’s definition – here’s what I found (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/renew?s=t [1])
renew … <ppt>
To begin or take up again
I might renew an acquaintance or a friendship and get in touch again.
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I had a friend request on facebook recently from some we had completely lost ouch with – it’s now a great joy to see what she’s doing.
Is is possible that your friendship with the Lord needs renewing?
To make effective for an additional period
I can re-validate my driving licence or renew my passport so it becomes useful again.
Is it possible that your commitment to the Lord needs renewing because it’s
to restore or replenish
Every week Rosi goes to the supermarket to buy food
I go to the garage to fill up the car with diesel.
Some of us here today are suffering from a spiritual emptiness
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for too long you’ve been running on empty and the loving Lord brought you here today to be filled again with his spirit!
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(Maybe a result of little spiritual feeding, may even be some sin – park that for the moment)
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He is here to meet with you – the promise is still the same.
To make, say or do again
I renew a promise
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sometimes couples come to me and say ‘we want to renew our vows’ – those are always greatly joyful events!
Some of you, when you were baptised you sang “O Jesus I have promised to serve you to the end” – but that promise has got moth-eaten!
To revive
To bring fresh life into ..
E.g. plant drooping – soak it in water for 15 mins and it revives!
Has your spiritual life waned? Has your commitment, your zeal, you fire burned a bit cold
Then nothing would please your heavenly Father more than to renew, to replenish, to re-ignite it today.
This is what Jesus promised us all!
John 7:37-39 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water
And so we know what he was talking about, John adds
39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given
But now, he has. We live with Pentecost in our past, not our future
Many of us here today need the renewing of our covenant – renewing of our spiritual life.
Can I take you to another scripture
<ppt> Romans 12:11 “never be lacking in zeal but keep your spiritual fervour”
It doesn’t quite read like that in the original Greek. Translators (presumably to make a nice rounded sentence that appeals to our grammatical good taste!) changed the noun ‘spirit’ into an adverb ‘spiritual’
Here’s the original – word for word:
In zeal – passionate!
In Spirit – burning!
(In the Lord – serving!, In hope – rejoicing! In affliction – resilient! IN prayer – relentless! Etc …)
<ppt> In spirit – burning!
I went to a conference last week – for me who are going to retire from the ministry in the next 5 years. BU ask all of us in that category to attend one of these.
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At this conference all of the participants had been in the ministry at least 25-30 years.
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As I looked round that room I thought ”these are the men who have made it” These are the men who have kept their spiritual fire ablaze for the marathon and not just the sprint.
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There is roughly an 80% attrition rate in the UK ministry. Only 2 out of 10 people who start in church leadership finish their career in it. And these were the men who had achieved that – slightly battered, yes, but still on fire for God. Still giving their lives and careers for His kingdom.
Some of you are this close to burning out, giving up, leaving the church leaving the service of Jesus,
You look back on your Christian life and you say ‘For what?’ ‘Why did I bother?’
God wants to encourage you.
He wants to have the covenant renewed, he wants your spiritual life to be on fire once again.
He wants to fill you with his renewing spirit
If you’re at the end of your tether, this is the right place to be!
WE Sangster (famous Methodist preacher) was interviewing a young man who wanted to go into the ministry.
The man said to him “I’m not the person to set the thames on fire.”
Sangster is supposed to have responded “Young man – I’m not interested in whether you can set the Thames on fire, I just want to be sure that if I took you by the scruff of the neck and dropped you in, would it sizzle?!”
Prayer >>>
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