Part 2 - Heads or Tails

“HEADS or TAILS”.

(Context: Deuteronomy is a series of sermons…. Making up one GREAT SERMON

The great sermon of Moses... on the plains of Moab pre promised land, He delivers his last great message. 120 years later - this is it - the great charge to his people, his last preaching opportunity to INSTILL FAITH and INSTRUCTION.

Chapters 1-11 Are the experience of Gods salvation

12-28 are the revelation of all the commandments and the law & what life can look like in obedience to a holy God inside of covenant relation ship.

Deuteronomy 28:8-14 ESV.

8 The Lord will command the blessing on you in your barns and in all that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 9 The Lord will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. 10 And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. 11 And the Lord will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. 12 The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. 13 And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them, 14 and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

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PRAY

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I wonder if i had the chance to sit with you and ask you, if you honestly, truly believed you were someone who carried, embodied GODS FAVOR. His BLESSING?

I wonder if that is something that is a deeply HELD belief?

I wanna speak today ultimately about PURPOSE.... Your PURPOSE: But Where….. that PURPOSE ultimately COMES FROM.

You have a PURPOSE: your not a mistake. You’re not an error. You are a MEANT to be THING. Made by GOD, MADE IN HIS IMAGE.

YOU HAVE PURPOSE> BOTH TODAY. EVD EVERYDAY.

BUT YOUR PURPOSE COMES FROM YOUR VALUE.

& YOUR VALUE.... IS ASSIGNED TO, DISPATCHED TO YOU… FROM GOD.

YOUR PURPOSE FLOWS FROM YOUR VALUE... AND YOUR VALUE IS ASSIGNED TO YOU BY GOD.

PURPOSE (d)

VALUE (d)

CHOSEN.

YOUR VALUE COMES FROM BEING CHOSEN.

YOUR PURPOSE COMES FROM YOUR VALUE.

AND YOUR VALUE REALY IS BECAUSE GOD HAS CHOSEN YOU AS HIS SON

GOD HAS CHOSEN YOU AS HIS DAUGHTER. AS HIS SON.

I WONDER IF YOU TRULY KNOW HOW VALUABLE YOU ARE TO GOD.

Sometimes we can forget it

doubt it

Challenge it (pride)

...Question it

Let me show you a few verses:

“Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold … but with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18, 19). (You’ve been redeemed)

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8) (God has demonstrated JUST HOW much)

“Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you” (Jeremiah 31:3) (His commitment to YOU is FOREVER!)

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” - 2 Cor 5:21 ESV

RIGHT STANDING... CHOSEN... VALUED.. PURPOSED!

WRITE DOWN: “MY VALUE IS BASED ON WHO HE IS.... NOT WHAT I DO” (of have done)

In Deuteronomy 28 GOD describes to HIS OWN people the way HE TREATS those that he loves... those that he has set apart, those that he considers HIS!~

He calls them the HEAD & NOT THE TAIL.

9 The Lord will establish you as a people holy to himself,

I BELIEVE THESE WILL BE REMINDERS FOR SOME TODAY

SOME PEOPLE THIS MIGHT BE THE VERY FIRST TIME EVER YOU HAVE HEARD THIS

FOR OTHERS I FEEL AS THOUGH THEY NEED TO BE FAITH DECLARATIONS

1.I AM THE HEAD & NOT THE TAIL

Lets say that together. “i am the head & not the tail”

13 And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down

I am the Head, Because He is the LORD.

Look a the verse:

And the Lord… Will…..

Will what?

Make you the HEAD.. and NOT THE TAIL>

Write this down: “What God commands, Man cannot STOP”

WHEN GOD SAYS I WILL MAKE…HES GONNA MAKE IT

He is going to make it. Where he WILLS it. No man can stop it. When God decrees it, No one can mess with it. If God says your GOING UP - no ONE CAN TAKE YOU DOWN.

that is EMPHATIC BIBLICAL LANGUAGE that simply means:

“ill make sure of it” “ill make it a CERTAINTY.”

**theres people in here today and you don’t treat yourself and your family and your businesses and your lives as though YOU ARE THE HEAD.

YOU ARE THE HEAD... THEREFORE YOU ARE CALLED TO LIVE LIKE YOU ARE THE HEAD.

YOU ARE CHOSEN, BECAUSE HE HAS CHOSEN YOU. You are different. You are now DIFFERENT.

God chose to have a people

That were different

meant to be different

for a different purpose.

ever feel diffeent?

well you are different - you are set apart to be that WAY:

Deuteronomy 7:6 ESV

6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

HOW DO WE LIVE LIKE THE HEAD?

We start by understanding that we are the HEAD because WE ARE SET APART.

So if you are SET APART

do you live SET APART? (many people dont get this)

(I’m not talking about puffed up pride: I’m talking about CARRYING THAT KIND OF CERTAINTY AROUND IN YOUR EVERYDAY LIFE>

DO YOU LIVE WITH A CLEAR CERTAINTY THAT YOU ARE CHOSEN BY GOD?

DO YOU HANDLE THE EBBS AND FLOWS OF LIFE WITH THAT KIND OF HOLY SPIRIT CONFIDENCE?

DO YOU WALK INTO THE SITUATIONS OF LIFE WITH AN EXPECTATION: I AM CHOSEN, SET APART BY GOD. SO THIS WILL WORK OUT FOR MY GOOD. AND HIS GLORY.

“IM SET APART FOR GOD TO USE FOR HIS GLORY”

Some of you need to begin every day declaring it over yourself:

I NEED TO BEGIN EVERY DAY WITH THE WIND… Not against me… but the WIND OF THE SPIRIT….AT MY BACK

I NEEDD START EVERY SEASON WITH a CLEAR UNDERSTANDING: THE TIDE IS IN MY FAVOR

I CAN LOOK AT NEW OPPORTUNITIES WITH AN EXPECTATION “IM WILL BE LOOKED AFTER BY MY FATHER IN HEAVEN”.

To live like the head means this; Faith Expectations:

*I should expect to be taken care of

*I can expect that my Joy will increase in me as I keep walking with God

*I don’t have to worry about my needs being met.

*I can encounter and navigate tough situations with faith knowing if im chosen, im covered.

Jesus in Matthew 6 reiterate this to an unbelieving and unsure crowd of perplexed”

“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” - Matt 6:26 ESV.

Here is what JESUS IS SAYING: Rememeber YOUR VALUE: You are the HEADand not the tail.

2.HE HAS PROMISED TO TAKE CARE OF ME

GOD WANTS TO BLESS YOU. But greater than that - He has said that he will. And He is. And He is going to

Deuteronomy 28:8–12 ESV

8 The Lord will command the blessing on you in your barns and in all that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 9 The Lord will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. 10 And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. 11 And the Lord will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. 12 The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.

8 The Lord will command the blessing on you in your barns and in all that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

Do you believe you are blessed in the Land you are living?

Because i think that a quick look around even if its just to see the faces of the ones around you at the dining table every day will make you remmever that he HAS actially BLESSED you

If he wants to BLESS you

That means he wants to TAKE CARE OF YOU

EPHESIANS 3: 12Because of Christ and our faith in him,d we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence

BOLD EXPECTATION... THATS GODS GONNA TAKE CARE OF ME.

(ALSO US AS A CHURCH)

*story:

LOOKING FOR VENUES AS A CHURCH. WE WERE STRAIGHT Into the woork of finding a space and a venue and belie

If i am the head

And he has promised to take care of me,…

Then i can and i will….

3.I WILL LET GOD WRITE MY STORY.

We have to let God be the one who writes out story...

Your life has a beautiful narrative to it. It has incredible potential. But if we want the best story written we have to allow the one who writes the best stories with our lives to be the one who writes it.

“Don’t write your own story; let God do it”.

12 The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.

DON’T WRITE it yourself.

We have to ALLOW God to outwork his STORY into us.

Is it FUNNY HOW WE TRY TO FORCE THE OUTCOME? MAKE THE RESULT HAPPEN. BUT WHAT IF WE UNDERSTOOD HOW POWERFUL IT IS WHEN WE TRUST GOD FOR THE OUTCOME!

Q:will you let GOD take care of you & write your story?

EPHESIANS 3:20

20-21 God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

WHAT COULD HAPPEN If we just let Him do it?

....HIS TIMING IS PERFECT...

Do we realise that it will be significantly BETER if we DO

YOUR THE HEAD..... BECAUSE HS IS LORD. NOT BECAUSE WE ARE GREAT - But BECAUSE HE IS GREAT

Deuteronomy 7:7 “7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples,”

1 Peter 2.

9 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests,[g] a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

YOU ARE THE HEAD: YOUR HEADSHIP IS BASED ON HIS LORDSHIP.

But His LORDSHIP is like NO OTHER: Remember who our JESUS IS

NOT LIKE ANY OTHER KING:

Above and Not Beneath: it doesn’t mean finishing ahead of everyone else ITS A REVERSAL OF THE FIRST AND THE LAST: Why? because

Moses was the one who led them but at the end of this book, he would NOT go on AHEAD - The people would

Then David, who was left out in a field tending sheep - taking care of the farm - while his brothers all lined up before samuel would get first shot at the top job. and it was David - the lowly david - the shepherd boy… who would become shepherd KING - and Lead MANY

and Then Jesus teaching first the sermon on the mount said it this way

Matt 5:2-

NOTES & Background:

The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy is a sermon—actually a series of sermons. It is the longest sermon in the Bible and maybe the longest sermon ever. Deuteronomy presents Moses, standing on the Plains of Moab with all Israel assembled before him, preaching. It is his last sermon. When he completes it, he will leave his pulpit on the plains, climb a mountain, and die.

The setting is stirring and emotion-packed. Moses had entered the biblical story of salvation as a little baby born in Egypt under a death threat. Now, 120 years later, eyesight sharp as ever and walking with “a spring in his step,” he preaches this immense sermon and dies, still brimming with words and life.

This sermon does what all sermons are intended to do: Take God’s words, written and spoken in the past, take the human experience, ancestral and personal, of the listening congregation, then reproduce the words and experience as a single event right now, in this present moment. No word that God has spoken is a mere literary artifact to be studied; no human experience is dead history merely to be regretted or admired. The continuous and insistent Mosaic repetitions of “today” and “this day” throughout these sermons keep attentions taut and responsive. The complete range of human experience is brought to life and salvation by the full revelation of God: Live this! Now!

The Plains of Moab are the last stop on the forty-year journey from Egyptian slavery to Promised Land freedom. The People of Israel have experienced a lot as a congregation: deliverance, wanderings, rebellions, wars, providence, worship, guidance. The People of Israel have heard a lot from God: commandments, covenant conditions, sacrificial procedures. And now, poised at the River Jordan, ready to cross over and possess the new land, Moses, preaching his great Plains of Moab sermon, makes sure that they don’t leave any of it behind, not so much as one detail of their experience or God’s revelation: He puts their entire experience of salvation and providence into the present tense (chapters 1–11); he puts the entire revelation of commandment and covenant into the present tense (chapters 12–28); and then he wraps it all up in a charge and a song and a blessing to launch them into today’s obedience and believing (chapters 29–34).

“Let’s go.”