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Sermon Feb 11, 2023
Choose Life
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Main Point: Obeying the command to "choose life" ought to be a no-brainer; it's deception that
causes people to choose death.
To cure deception, get to know Jesus better.
He is the living truth,
revealed across the whole bible, and in the daily lives of his people.
Introduction
In Deut 30 verses 15, Moses is speaking on behalf of God to the Israelites, and he rallies them
with a challenge.
He asks them to make a commitment.
He says, “Look, today I offer you life
and success, death and destruction.”
This comes after twenty nine chapters of Deuteronomy, in
which God has given the law to his chosen people, and then explained in painstaking detail that
if they obey they will be rewarded; if they disobey they will be punished; if they repent they will
be forgiven.
Now comes the capstone summary of the Torah.
“I am offering you life or death, blessings or curses.
Now, choose life!” Scientists and
psychologists have a precise technical term for a decision like this.
It is called a “no brainer.”
Given a choice between life and death, of course the decision is obvious.
Every created organism
constantly and instinctively chooses life.
Every animal has a fight or flight response – from lowly
frogs or insects.
Why is it hard for people to choose life?
Why would God even need to
command it?
Why don’t people choose life?
God has defined the relationship he wants with Israel across the preceding 29 chapters.
And now
this is like a marriage proposal.
Or it’s like the rallying call of a general before a battle.
God is
confronting his people, and asking for them to make a firm commitment.
There is a rational,
logical part of this decision, but people can make the wrong choice if they are deceived.
There is
also an emotional part of this decision, and people make the wrong choice if their hearts are in
the wrong place.
Let’s first read this passage of scripture.
Then I’ll use a contemporary illustration to demonstrate
the problem, and then we’ll talk about the solution.
15 Look, today I offer you life and success, death and destruction.
16 I command you
today to love the Lord your God, to do what he wants you to do, and to keep his
commands, his rules, and his laws.
Then you will live and grow in number, and the Lord
your God will bless you in the land you are entering to take as your own.
17 But if you turn away from the Lord and do not obey him, if you are led to bow and
serve other gods, 18 I tell you today that you will surely be destroyed.
And you will not
live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan River to enter and take as your own.
19 Today I ask heaven and earth to be witnesses.
I am offering you life or death, blessings
or curses.
Now, choose life!
Then you and your children may live.
20 To choose life is to
love the Lord your God, obey him, and stay close to him.
He is your life, and he will let
you live many years in the land, the land he promised to give your ancestors Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob.
What problems could cause people to not choose life?
That has just been defined for us as:
loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and staying close to him.
So people are either: not
loving God, or not obeying him, or not staying close to him.
1) They don’t believe God
a) Either that he could truly offer them life
b) Or – so downcast by sin – they’ve lost the taste of how good life can be
c) Or – they believe life is available some other way
2) They do believe some of what God says, but they don’t know him well enough, so
a) They procrastinate.
They intend to choose life, but later; after they have some fun
doing their own thing and ignoring God.
b) They deceive themselves.
They think they are choosing life, but they are in error –
putting some idol before God, and not.
c) They are trying to choose life; but they don’t actually have the ability to follow
through.
Recount story of a sand truck on Hwy 17; its brakes failed on a downhill stretch,
and it plowed through and smashed multiple cars in a deadly series of wrecks.
Human nature is like that – sin can be a heavy load, with inertia that we just can’t
stop – without a divine miracle.)
The problem of spiritual misinformation
The root cause of choosing death over life is misinformation.
A self-willed acceptance of a lie,
not truly knowing God and holding false beliefs about Him.
False beliefs stem from alienation
and ultimately lead to destructive actions.
It's important to recognize that, just as a tree has many
branches but one trunk, the various reasons for choosing death can be traced back to this single
source.
The tree of misinformation is the Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil.
It is
choosing, by self will, what is to be believed.
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