Lent 3 (2024)

I remember all the laws that we were going to have in our house before we had kids…the chores they would do , the books they would read, morning and evening prayer, and not a scrap of tablet time… Well like Moses it turns out that I am not a perfect law giver.

TO be fair my kids are pretty great, and even though they get a little more tablet time that I am comfortable with, they read, they imagine, and they love each other and the Lord well. But man I really thought our house could be a little monastery.

Today we are going to look at Moses and his final law giving on behalf of God…and if you have read what happens after Moses you would know that it does not turn out perfectly.

The Main Point today is that God gives us his Law and how to pass on his Law, then finally he gives us his Son’s obedience to the law.

Deuteronomy 6

What is the book of Deut all about: Final sermons of Moses, they are to the generation after the generation that got the 10 commandments (they die in dessert) So moses give them the Law, he give the blessings and curses of the Law and then tells the people that they will fail the law eventually and God will take them back when they repent after. Our particular section, Moses had just gone over the 10 commandments, and now he is going to do something that is formative to the life of Israelite believers.

[1] “Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, [2] that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long.

So a restatement of what is happening here, Moses is giving them the Law, so that they can live by them when they enter the land.

In keeping the Law they will fear God, that is have a loyalty to him, and it will have a result. That their days will be long.

[3] Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

A bit of a restatement with more promise added. Remember this is poetry designed to be memorized. It is also a verbal sermon so things are restated. Now its not just that you be carful that you do these things in the land, and you will have long live…the land flows with milk and honey. They people will multiply. God is telling the people a blessing of covenant faithfulness.

[4] “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. [5] You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

The Hebrew word for “Hear” is shema. So this prayer became known as the shema. Israelites would pray is twice a day.

Is became so important to the way they worshiped Yahweh that when asked what is the greatest commandment...

It even is with us today…well…not literally… 1st Sunday of the month

[6] And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. [7] You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. [8] You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. [9] You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (ESV)

You will have them on your heart and pass them down. They shall saturate the way you live. There are ways to literally live this out. And some do. At the same time there is a larger principle being given. That our lives are saturated with God and his word, and that we teach our kids.

The problem with our anti institutional age…We hold these fervent beliefs but we cant pass them on. There is nothing for our kids to hang onto. I am thankful everyday for the churched upbringing my family gave me.

I am going to quickly work through part 2 of our OT reading, but then it will be the topic of our application.

[20] “When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the LORD our God has commanded you?’

We are back to the question of how to pass along what we believe to the next Generation. When the children ask…why do we zig when everyone else zags.

To answer this Moses give us an almost creed like statement

[21] then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. And the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. [22] And the LORD showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. [23] And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. [24] And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. [25] And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us.’ (ESV)

The Main Point today is that God gives us his Law and how to pass on his Law, then finally he gives us his Son’s obedience to the law.

Lent is the time to prepare catechumens for Baptism, and we also have friends who are going to start preparing for confirmation.

This is the way we as high church anglicans observe the commands of God. And to be clear we do so along side our other high church brothers and sisters, who also use this season for preparation. We do this because God commands it in Deuteronomy and our Prayer Book also does in the Baptism rite...

And all these things we make a part of our weekly worship so that it would become a part of us.

The 10 commandments, Shema, Nicene Creed, Gloria Patri.

Let us also remember that the world we live in those who say no to God also have their own creeds, different creeds, Creeds that ask us to forsake God. They shout their creeds. Creeds that twist love into just sex and sex without boundaries. Creeds that take autonomy to the point that if autonomy is threatened its okay to kill a human being. Creeds that take the real oppression experienced by racial minorities and weaponizes it as a political tool, as opposed to a real conversation about the dignity of all humans. Also creeds that demand the right to prepare for violence with no boundaries. Creeds that make an idol out of all human freedom, no matter how destructive.

No thank you…Ill take the creeds of the ancient church.

He is Risen…he is risen indeed. Not Ceasar is Lord but Christ is Lord. Christ is Died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again,

[3] For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, [4] that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, [5] and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. [6] Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. (ESV)

I believe in God, the father almighty...

Let these be the creeds of the church, and those that we teach our children.

The Main Point today is that God gives us his Law and how to pass on his Law, then finally he gives us his Son’s obedience to the law.

Moses gave the law a second time in Deutoronomy and also gave with it, blessings and curses.

But Moses, as great as he was, could not change peoples heart to follow the law. He could not stop the people from living out the curses.

But Matthew, Mark, Luke and John tell us of a better Moses. A perfect Law Giver…so perfect that he not only gives us the Law…on our behalf he keeps that law. On the cross, Jesus takes on himself the curses of Deuteronomy, and in exchange gives us the blessings. Jesus takes our curses and gives us he blessings. And not only that, we then get the Holy Spirit, and he transforms our hearts to start living the commands of God.

When we respond with a yes to Jesus Christ we get the benefits of his death on the cross. We go to the land of milk and honey, that is the land of God’s eternal provision.

Today at this table we are going to foretaste that provision. We will eat of Jesus body and and blood, in a spiritual manner, and in doing so have in us the benefits of the cross, fellowship with God.