Deuteronomy 30

Good morning church family, go ahead and open your bibles to Deuteronomy 30, I am Jackson, I have been interning in our student ministry for just over 2.5 years now and one thing I have learned about working with middle and high schoolers is that they do really silly things.

If you have kids I am sure this is no surprise to you, but for me, it never ceases to amaze me the things students will do. I could give you story after story of things students have done that made me go, “they did what”. Not even necessarily harmful things, just really really silly things.

And as I think back I can think of some really dumb things I did as a middle and high schooler.

And what we know is that students frontal lobes aren’t fully developed yet, so they don’t really have the tools to make good decisions. And admitedly, scientifically, my frontal lobe is not fully developed yet either, I have a few more years on that as I am sure some staff here would be quick to tell you, but that’s neither here nor there.

We recognize students don’t have the tools to make good decisions. Like they know what’s right and wrong, yet they keep doing silly things. +pause*

Similarly, most of us would say we know what God desires of us, we know what his commands are yet do you ever feel like you just keep messing it up? Do you feel like you try and try but it can feel like you don’t have the tools.

You may have a fully developed frontal lobe, unlike me, and still feel like you just cannot get it right.

In the text we are looking at today, Moses is sharing his final sermon with the people of Israel a people who know the commands of God, yet just cant seem to get it right.

Would you stand in honor of God’s word.

Deuteronomy 30:11–20 ESV

“For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it. “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

First, where are we in the story of the Bible. Moses has been leading the people of Israel through the dessert from Egypt to the promise land for forty years. The reason they have not entered yet is because of the people’s disobedience. God has made this covenant, or this agreement with the people of Israel that he is going to make a nation out of them and give them the promise land.

The problem is that the people of Israel just keep being disobedient, so God keeps punishing them, delaying them going into the promise land, God is going to do what he promised but there are still consequences for the Israelites sin. Last week Wade shared one of the stories of their disobedience. And what we see here is this pattern throughout the journey of the people of Israel where God makes a covenant that he is going to keep, the people are disobedient, God punishes them, then restores them and renews the covenant. This happens over and over again.

And in the text we are looking at today, we see Moses’ last sermon to the people of Israel after 40 years of leading them. Moses is going to die and in this last message to the people of Israel he is proclaiming the renewal of the covenant once again with the people of Israel.

And this is where our text begins.

Deuteronomy 30:11 ESV

“For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.

So Moses begins this passage by telling them “this is not too hard for you.” What is not too hard for them? If we look in the verse before, Moses is telling the people of Israel to follow the commands of the Lord. Now we can assume that people of Israel must have felt that this was a tall order because Moses has to tell them it is not too hard.

I hear what Moses is saying but if I am the Israelites in that moment, I am thinking the same thing, listen Moses we have not been very good at this up to this point, it seems like the bar may be a little high.

Yet, Moses, tells them its not too hard. Why? Let’s keep reading.

Deuteronomy 30:12–14 ESV

It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.

In other words, Moses says, the reason it is not to hard is because the word of God is in your heart. You don’t need someone to go to heaven to find it and bring it down, you don’t need to go across the sea and search for it, no the word is in your heart, so you can follow it.

And to understand the fullness of what Moses is trying to communicate we can look at verse 6 which is not in the passage we are looking at. It says this:

Deuteronomy 30:6 ESV

And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

So the reason, despite all their failures, that keeping the commands of God is not too hard for them is because the word is written on their hearts, and what verse 6 is telling us here is that God is actually working in their hearts to enable them to love God.

What is significant about this is that the text says, God works in their hearts so that they will love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul THAT you may live. What we will see as we keep reading is that “to live” as Moses discusses it is to be obedient to God’s commands and recieve the blessing therein.

So, Moses is making the claim that it is the work God is doing in their hearts to Love him that will enable them to be obedient to God’s commands.

So for all of us this morning, I want to be very clear about how holiness, obedience comes about. It is not by trying harder, it is not by doing enough, it is not about grabbing the wheel of holiness and striving more, first and foremost it is loving God that will enable you to be obedient.

The significance of this of this is that so many of us in response to our sin, try harder, get more disciplined, be harder on ourselves, break our backs with the law of God only to continue in disobedience. I am not saying we shouldn’t make effort to be obedient, we MUST make effort AND any effort we make that doesn’t address the central issue of loving God will not produce sanctification within us.

Now there is tension here, and I don’t feel peace about going too far in the weeds here, but stick with me.

Let’s keep reading.

Deuteronomy 30:15–18 ESV

“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess.

So Moses lays it out for the people of Israel, he says there are two options before you, life and death. One leads to good and the other to evil. But we aren’t Israelites, we aren’t in the desert. What does this mean for us?

The first thing we must understand, is that we are not under the law. The Israelites at this time were living under the law meaning that they were saved by their obedience, they were saved by doing the right thing and the wrong thing led to punishment and death. But we have been set free from the law and have our righteousness based on faith. And Paul makes this distinction using this passage from Deuteronomy in Romans chapter 10. Listen to see if you can hear it.

Romans 10:5–9 ESV

For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Does this sound familiar? Paul is rewriting moses’ words for what it means to us today to be living in righteousness based on faith rather than the law. Remember Moses said its not too hard for you because the word is written on your heart you don’t need to go up to heaven and find it, you don’t need to cross the sea to get it but the word is on your heart and God is working in your heart so you can follow it.

Now Paul is writing that you do not need to bring Christ down from heaven or go into the abyss to find him but simply you must believe in Christ to be saved. It is not obedience that saves us, but it is faith in Jesus Christ.

Another striking example of this truth. Comes to just from John chapter 6 where Jesus has just fed the 5000 and the Jews are questioning Jesus and they are asking him what work must we do to be saved. They are thinking in terms of law and obedience for salvation.

John 6:28–29 ESV

Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

Jesus says the work is to believe! No longer is the work to follow the law, the law that humans would never be able to follow perfectly.

This is beautiful, no longer must we bear the weight of the law that we cannot keep but we are set free in Christ by faith in Him! We must believe!

So then where does obedience have it’s place?

Let’s return to our passage in Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 30:19–20 ESV

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

Moses tells the people of Israel to choose life that they may live. This still has meaning for us today.

If you have truly trusted in Jesus Christ you WILL be saved, your salvation is not at question even by disobedience. You cannot lose your salvation. It has been guaranteed by the blood of Jesus.

However, God has made you and saved you for a purpose and a calling. Disobedience robs you of experiencing the fullness of the life God has for you.

God promised the Israelites the promise land and he was keeping that promise, but they would not enjoy the fullness of it while walking in dis obedience.

You have been given eternity, nothing is going to change that, but you will not enjoy the fullness of eternity of this earth while walking in disobedience.

On the other hand, obedience welcomes you into the fullness of the life God has for you.

On top of that, there is a reason God’s commands are God’s commands. Sin has consequences, adultery, murder, lust, pride, selfishness, idolatry, these things do not lead to any sort of good. It is god’s provision and care that these are to be avoided.

So the invitation your you today is to Choose life, to choose to be obedient and walk into the fullness of the life God has for you.

I could today preach, will you choose to wake up in the morning and serve God, or serve your selfish desires and sin. And frankly, that’s a good biblical message. And I know in this room there are people who need that message. Some of you in this room have not been taking seriously the call of God on your life and you are called to repentance and obedience. If you have not been putting in effort towards being obedient to God’s commands you need to take a step back and ask yourself some questions.

And, at the same time, what I know, because I know myself and lots of other humans, there are also people in this room who love God, are making an effort to be obedient to God’s commands, and yet feel trapped in their humanity. Folks who feel buried under the weight of their perceived disappointment before God and would hear a message on “who are you going to serve” as shame and condemnation, which would turn into motivation to be more disciplined, to give more effort, and then inevitably that motivation would fade in time under the weight of reality of the human condition.

What I don’t want to do this morning, and bear with me, what I don’t want to do is bolster you for a time to grab a hold of the wheel tightly and strive for holiness. Though I want you to be holy, I want you to have a biblical understanding of how holiness comes about.

Growing up and living in the world that we live in we begin to think in response to my sin I need to try harder, I need to be more disciplined, I need to have more devotion and focus. As if. You could wake up tomorrow and just decide to be more Holy.

Now, hear me, I am not saying that you should stop making an effort to be obedient to God’s commands, you absolutely should be making an effort to be obedient to God’s commands, that is essential and you are fully responsible for your sin. And. There is more going here than simply trying harder.

Remember, we just saw in he word of God, it is loving God that enables us to be obedient to God’s commands. So the question is not how do I try harder, because trying harder alone is not enough. the challenge is loving God. Because it is loving God that produces obedience.

But wait, we have seen in the word that it is God who works in our hearts to love him, he changes our desires over time, so that we will love him more. So there is this tension, we are called to be obedient but we must love God to be obedient and loving God is a work God does in our hearts. And As I am reading the word and preparing for the message this week I find myself asking this question the question I am sure some of yall are asking right now. WHAT THEN AM I TO DO. *Pause*

And here we find ourselves asking the same question the Jews asked Jesus in John 6, what am I to do to be doing the works of God.

I am here today to tell you discipline is valuable, there is value in fighting the fight of obedience, but your greatest challenge is not being more disciplined, your greatest challenge is not trying hard enough, your greatest challenge is not being more devoted to God, your greatest challenge is believing the Gospel.

Jesus says the work is to believe!

The covenant God made with Abraham that the Israelites were under was a covenant that God made and God kept there was no requirement of the people of Israel, god was going to do his work, God was going to save and deliver his people and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

If you have faith in Jesus Christ today God is working in you to save you and deliver you and there is nothing you me or anyone can do to stop that. God worked in your heart to save you and he is working in your heart to sanctify you.

Your job is to believe! believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, believe his word is good and true, believe his commands are right and just, and believe just how loved you are. My story is that I was totally steeped in sin, broken, convicted standing before the throne of God weeping over the wrong I knew I had done and the love of God washed over me, despite my sin. In that moment I knew how loved I was and I started to live differently. Why? Because, loved people, live differently.

We can look to the cross and choose life because the son of man chose death for your sins and mine. Your sin is far as gone as the east is from the west and God is saying I have done a work in your heart not because you did anything, not because you tried hard enough but because I love you, and because I love you I will sanctify you, your work is to believe just how loved you are because loved people, live differently.

The problem is a lot of us get in this place, where we see our disobedience as a failure and disappointment to God and we begin to think that our standing before God is somehow dependent upon our actions. And so we think man I did good today, God’s favor is shining upon me, oh no I did bad today so God’s wrath is upon me. This puts us in an impossible situation because we are then constantly in shifting standing before God which breeds distrust, doubt, shame, and condemnation which in turn just leads to more disobedience.

Yes sin has consequences, and disobedience is not God’s best for us, and even in the moment after we sin God looks on us with love because of the finished work of Christ Jesus.

And so today, I’m not saying, stop fighting sin, stop striving for holiness, no keep doing those things, but do not just do those things. You must do them while setting your gaze upon the love of God. To choose life is to choose loving God And being obedient. You cannot have one without the other.

Deuteronomy 30:19–20 ESV

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

You cannot have one without the other.

Whats happening as we grow in our faith is that we believe how loved we are by God and in response to that love we love God, “we love because he first loved us” 1 john 4:19 and so as we love him we will choose obedience, and then we see how obedience was God’s grace in our life and that obedience produced so much more good than disobedience and so we trust God more, we trust his ways are good, and so we believe more how loved we are, and so we love God more and we are more willing to be obedient and it’s this cycle that produces sanctification within us all led and governed by God through the holy spirit at work within us.

I wish that I could give you some simple way to be more obedient and love God more. I wish it was a math problem, this plus this equals loving God and sanctification. However, God has chosen for this tension to exist where we have to trust him that he is doing a work in us and he is going to get us to the finish line. That’s faith. The gift of Christ is that we get to be along for that ride knowing that his love and grace for us is never in question.

Listen if you a believer in Christ this morning, God has given you a new heart and he is and will continue to change your desires to love him more. He saved you, He will sanctify you, and because of your new heart you will continue to put in effort towards being obedient, there is the spirit inside you leading you towards obedience. So when you mess up, when you do something dumb, you can trust that God is still moving, he is still working in you and as the blood of Jesus was enough to save you it is enough to sustain you. You don’t beat yourself up but you return to the feet of the father and receive the fullness of grace and love and then you get back up choose life. You choose loving God and you choose obedience.

And so as Moses said to the people of Israel, choose life, I say to you and me today, choose life.

The fullness of God awaits you today, Choose life by loving God and choosing obedience.

Let’s pray