Deuternonomy 29

Introduction

Covenant Renewal Chapter:

Heather and I are approaching our 20th Wedding Anniversary this year, which is crazy to believe.

Can you believe that, Heather?

We got married when we were like 18, so you know, you can do the math…

Vows=Supposed to be for life? We have no plans to renew our vows, but it’s a popular thing, particularly for those who had a rough go…

One Psychologist:

Review your Past

Commitment in the Present

Plans for the Future

Sort of how this chapter is organized:

Part I: Yesterday’s Grace

Part II: Today’s Commitment

Part III: Tomorrow’s Challenges

Part I: vv. 2-9: Yesterday’s Grace

BIG Grace: Salvation from Egypt

2  And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: “You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, 3 the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. 4 But to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear

Looking backwards to your moment of Salvation

God saved you from slavery.

You witnessed (as children) these great wonders.

Looking back: 4 But to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.

v. 4: “Verse 4 is difficult.” Block

They haven’t yet fully understand the full scope of the significance of this event…

Legendary story of Abraham Lincoln:

As the story goes, Lincoln was walking across Knob Creek and fell in. Lincoln’s buddy Austin Gollaher pulled Lincoln from the heavy current. Assuming this story is true, one could later sit down with Austin and say, “When you saved your buddy Ab, you had no idea how significant that act would be on the course of history.”

In this case, the scope of what God did through the Exodus is just that much greater!

God hasn’t yet fully revealed the scope of physical salvation from slavery.

They experienced it, but they don’t yet understand yet how significant the salvation of such an insignificant clan…

Most significant Old Testament event.

Little did they know that the Exodus would serve as the Old Testament example of salvation that would later come in Jesus.

How the Exodus would serve as the precursor to the Cross?

How their salvation from slavery would point to our salvation in Christ!

Today, you don’t quite get it… But you will…

BUT, now notice this:

After Moses describes God’s BIG grace, then Moses points to a different kind of miracle.

Mundane Miracles:

5 I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn off your feet. 6 You have not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine or strong drink, that you may know that I am the Lord your God.

God flexed His muscles against the greatest Nation on Planet earth: He manipulated creation in all sorts of ways in Egypt… He performed the single greatest event in the Old Testament…

But wait! There’s more!:

While you were in the desert:

Clothes didn’t wear out for 40 years.

Did you notice this? They didn’t tatter? Or rip or wear down?

Your sandals didn’t crack in the sand… Did you ever notice that you never needed to make more sandals?

Such instructive Teaching:

Jesus as God died in your place. Like the Lamb’s blood over the door frames in Egypt, Jesus blood washes us clean, protecting us from eternal separation from God! What a GRACE!

And guess what, God’s provision isn’t a one and done. He will continue to provide for you. He will be with you in the trenches. He will be supply for your needs in the trenches.

When you’ve gone through tough times the worst of times, times when when you are sluggish in your faith… How have you experienced God’s mundane miracles?

Laid off or fired: Little mundane miracles reminding you God is with you in this.

Struggle with fear or anxiety…

Worried about your financial security…

Mom’s here this morning:

House burnt down when she was 13… Imagine, everything gone…

Community showed up and they were overwhelmed with support.

Like Christmas come early. Tragic event…

God took care of their slavery, and He took care of their journey!

Dad: Moved from Holland to Canada as an 11 year old.

Didn’t know how to speak English.

Had to adjust to a whole new life in a whole new continent.

But yet the Lord provided for them. Job, after job, house after house… God was with him.

Both of them profess: God was with us through those times.

Do you recognize how God gives you mundane miracles?

The invisible graces we don’t see or recognize. It’s only when we look back do we see, how God was totally with us through that…

Job loss… Miscarriage… Marriage separation… Cancer… Family trauma… Depression… Grief…

“Your clothes did wear out… You sandals stayed tied and strong.”

Act 1: Today’s Commitment

10 “You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God: the heads of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, all the men of Israel, 11 your little ones, your wives, and the sojourner who is in your camp, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water, 12 so that you may enter into the sworn covenant of the Lord your God, which the Lord your God is making with you today, 13 that he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he promised you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 14 It is not with you alone that I am making this sworn covenant, 15 but with whoever is standing here with us today before the Lord our God, and with whoever is not here with us today.

Focus on everyone being present.

v. 10-11: “Tribes, elders, officers, men, little ones, wives, sojourners, those who cut wood and draw water…

v. 15: “But with whoever is standing here today before the Lord our God, and with whoever is not here with us today.”

Interesting emphasis in the text: This covenant is for all all:

Leaders. Children. Spouses. Immigrants, and servants who do the most remedial tasks…

EVEN: those sick who can’t be here to listen to this sermon… Or those who are traveling to a funeral…

Whoever is part of you, whether they are here or not here…

And what does the Lord say he’s doing with every single person in this group:

v. 12: To enter into a sworn covenant of the Lord.

That he may establish you as people who belong to him.

That he may be your God.

No one person from this covenant group can miss the point: God made them His people.

One one person will miss their opportunity. No matter where you fall on the social strata of significance.

Highly personal God.

Covenant is not merely a relationship God makes with a people group. This is TRUE!

But this people group is made with individuals.

Covenant isn’t merely about the collective people. It’s an relationship with covenanted individuals as well.

YOU MATTER!

Whether you want to be here or not…

As if God is saying, “I want you here.”

2nd Significant aspect of this passage: Focus on the Present

“Today”=5x

Our history shapes us!

But so does the present!

Christianity is not a religion stuck in the past! It’s a relationship for the present!

God’s faithfulness he proved in the past is in this very moment!

Our worship services are sort of like weekly covenant renewals.

Significant work involved in helping us understanding two sides of the same coin:

“I am your God.”

“You are my people.”

“I belong to you.”

“You belong to me.”

And it’s that first statement that is so beyond our comprehension, isn’t it?

God of universe. God of all creation. God who knew us before the foundation of the World.

God who created Super Black Holes and the circuitry of our brain cells.

That God says to you this morning: “I am your God.”

He proved He was their God in the past.

He confirmed He is their God in the present.

Individual, on the spot calling to FAITH:

Who needs to hear this morning that God commits himself to you personally?

Late Night Show:

How has it stayed in business? Pick your funny man on NBC, CBS, and ABC. Totally predictable programming. Same sort of hosts with the same sort of jokes. BUT yet, they seem to keep our attention!

Jonny Carson’s humor doesn’t work the same way it did 30 years ago… They remain in the here and now based on a decades of history.

They keep the humor current.

And here we are: 1 morning a week, about an hour and a half of covenant renewal.

To hear the same basic message: Same sort of preachers with the same sort of sermons…

Don’t live in the past!

NOWness of Christianity.

Urgency for CURRENT, on the SPOT, relevant called to faith.

DO A COVENANT RENEWAL ON THE SPOT!

Come one, come all… Tune in… Regardless of where you are at this moment…

God is yours and you belong to Him.

Part III: vv. 16-21: Tomorrow’s Challenges

16 “You know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed. 17 And you have seen their detestable things, their idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold, which were among them. 18 Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit, 19 one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’ This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike. 20 The Lord will not be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the Lord and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and the curses written in this book will settle upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. 21 And the Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for calamity, in accordance with all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.

A bunch of bewares:

v. 18: Beware of turning away from the Lord and serve other gods.

v. 18: Bear lest you become a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit…

Another difficult verse:

v. 18: “lest there be among you a stock bearing poisonous fruit or wormwood.”

Roots don’t produce fruit… Stock

But I wonder if it’s actually something like a potato: “green or spoiled potatoes and within the spouts”

Wormwood: poisonous oil: thujone

POINT:

In this journey of faith, don’t allow your eyes to look away from Jesus. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus!

Idols: Conversation with a fellow pastor about idols unique to this area:

Productionism

Safeism

Communityism

Rick Warren: Koinonitis

This is how we justify our wondering eyes:

Beware of the… “19 one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’ This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike. 20 The Lord will not be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the Lord and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and the curses written in this book will settle upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. 21 And the Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for calamity, in accordance with all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.

Listen to how we can justify idolatry:

“I shall be safe, even though my heart is as hard as a knot.”

Stubbornness: Always linked with heart

Stubbornness of Heart:

How to make a rope? Cool machines twisting things together… That rope becomes firm?

That’s the sense here: A stubborn heart is a twisted heart, a hard heart. A heart that doesn’t want to be molded or shaped because it’s basically a knot!

Baseball Cleats: Determined to get this knot out. But I couldn’t do it!

“I shall be safe, even though my heart is all twisted and confused…”

Greatest critisism against many reformed Christians: Frozen Chosen!

The Egotistically Elected

The Right with no Faith Fight

The Passively Picked

The Stone Cold Called

The Indifferently Determined

You can’t say your safe with a knotted heart!

Jeremiah 31:31–33 “31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Saved not by good works, but for good works.

In what way does the Holy Spirit need to untie the knots in your heart?

If you wrestle with one of those idols I mentioned above, in what ways can the Holy Spirit sit down…

Like a kid running up to your parents:

Always frustrated…. I can’t untie this knot…

Come to God in this moment and again, on the spot, invite him to untie your heart?

Sense of urgency:

Rest of this passage:

22 And the next generation, your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, will say, when they see the afflictions of that land and the sicknesses with which the Lord has made it sick— 23 the whole land burned out with brimstone and salt, nothing sown and nothing growing, where no plant can sprout, an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and wrath— 24 all the nations will say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land? What caused the heat of this great anger?’ 25 Then people will say, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, 26 and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them. 27 Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, bringing upon it all the curses written in this book, 28 and the Lord uprooted them from their land in anger and fury and great wrath, and cast them into another land, as they are this day.’

Difficult to see the grace in this passage:

Israel would receive the blow of their disobedience…

The Lord would do to Israel what Israel was supposed to do to the Land.

THE LAND WOULD GET PURGED ONE WAY OR ANOTHER!

THE LORD WANTED TO USE ISRAEL TO RESTORE THIS LAND, BUT THEY WERE UNABLE!

AND So the Lord would get it done by removing Israel from the land!

THE LAND WOULD GET PURGED from Idolatry one way or another.

IN other words, THY WILL will GET DONE.

Lesson for future faithfulness:

Your natural desire you need to work against is your tug towards the idols.

At the same time, the miracle of Christ’s work, is that YOUR HEART WILL GET PURGED!

Some of you may hate your additive and destructive behavior. It may most likely be a battle you’ll have for your whole life!

But the grace is this:

In Christ Alone:

Till on that cross as Jesus died, The wrath of God was satisfied; For ev’ry sin on him was laid — Here in the death of Christ I live.

Just as the Lord would ensure His plan will be acknomplished, he will ensure the work He started in your will be completed!

HOPE!

Philippians 1:6 “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

When you look back on your life:

Big graces and mundane miracles.

In the here and now, renew your commitment to Christ!

And for the future, allow the Spirit to work through the knots in your heart.