There's Power in the Punchline

Introduction:

Good morning guys!

If this is your first time here, welcome and we are so glad that you decided to join us this morning.

If anyone here hasn’t met me yet, my name is Jeff, my amazing wife Jessica and I are the youth pastors here at Grace. I also get the privilege of serving on the teaching team, it is my Sunday up to bat.

I want to share a message with you that I’ve titled “There’s Power in the Punchline!” We will break that down further later, today we’ll be continuing our series through the book of Deuteronomy and if you want to get ahead, we’ll be in Deuteronomy 10-11.

Deuteronomy Recap:

Just to catch everyone up on what’s going on, we are in the book of Deuteronomy. It is the fifth book of the bible and the last book in what is known as the Torah or Pentateuch, or the books of Moses. In Deuteronomy, we have recorded Moses’ final farewell addresses. An easy way to think about these is as three different sermons that he gives over the course of about 37 days. Chapters 1-4 were one sermon, 5-26 were his second sermon, 27-30 are his third and final sermon, and 31-34 are the closing events of this venture, such as Moses’ death and everything else that happens.

At this point, Israel has traveled up from the south through the region of Moab. They are on the eastern shore of the Jordan river within striking distance of their first military target to take the land promised to them. That would be the city of Jericho, the battle that is coming up is pretty famous.

The entire book of Deuteronomy is about 37 days and it’s Moses’ final words before his death and Israel enters into the Promised land. We will be in chapters 10-11 today, so we’ll be in the middle of his second sermon.

Before we jump into our study today, let’s pray.

ME:

A lot of times, I’ll start my messages with a story of sorts. A lot of times my stories are about my kids or about parenting. This is because I’ve learned so much about God from being a father, I’ve learned so much about God from being a parent. It’s so amazing, you see God in such a new perspective when you are a parent, when you have a human that relies on you. There are amazing things that come with that, you get to understand love and sacrifice on an incredible level.

There’s a lot of amazing parts of being a father, there’s also some less amazing parts. Like, the things I have to say to my kids. Like “Hey, why are your shoes off? Where is the other one…” “Don’t put that trashcan on your head.” “Don’t eat things off the floor… especially if it’s been stepped on.” The joys of parenting. One thing I love about being a dad, is dad jokes. Dad jokes are just the best.

Groans are almost more satisfying than laughs for a dad, I believe.

For example:

Why don’t crabs give to charity? Because they’re shellfish. How do you tell the difference between an alligator and a crocodile? You will see one later and one in a while. Why do you never see elephants hiding in trees? Because they’re so good at it. I don’t trust stairs. They’re always up to something. I spent a lot of time, money, and effort childproofing my house… but the kids still got in. You know, people say they pick their nose, but I feel like I was just born with mine.

Personally, I love comedy in general. But you know what makes a good joke? It’s the punchline. The punchline of the joke is defined as the sentence, statement, or phrase that makes the point. When you tell a joke, all the power is in the punchline. Dad jokes are kings at this.

What I’ve found is that there is power in the punchline. As I’ve begun to read the bible, I realize that Jesus is the punchline of scripture. He is what makes the point and everything else is just leading up and building up to the punchline. Because There’s Power in the Punchline.

Setup:

We’re going to see this throughout chapters 10 & 11 today that it is all a foreshadowing and build-up to the punchline of scripture, Jesus.

As we jump into the text today, we’re going to see Moses in this speech pointing out how the Children of Israel don’t deserve to be brought into the Promised Land.

In Chapter 9 we see Moses reminding the people of their wrongdoings. He speaks about the golden calf they constructed to worship while he was on the mountain receiving the ten commandments the first time. He then tells them about their rebellion in Kadesh Barnea.

So this sermon has taken an odd turn, he begins to just spew out all their wrongdoings. All their mistakes, all their rebellions, all the things that they are likely embarrassed by. Can you imagine how big you’d feel right now. Moses is clearly aging and not doing well, he begins his big motivational speech and goes into that… “oh no…can we just forget the calf?” “Ooh.. I forgot about Kadesh Barnea.. Yeah that was mybad.”

What if you came to church today and I just started spewing all the mistakes you’d made this week? What if God had whispered to me what each individual person has done just this week and I was instructed to share it from the pulpit. Some of y’all are nervous already. I’m not going to do that obviously, but I just want you to feel how they would have felt.

Their sins are not private, they are not their own. God and Moses know about them, they are aware they don’t deserve this land they are about to inhabit.

But Moses ends the chapter by telling how he prayed for them. He told about how he laid prostrate before the Lord for 40 days and 40 nights because God wished to destroy them. But Moses mediating for them.

GOD:

Deuteronomy 9:25-29

Deuteronomy 9:25–29 NIV

I lay prostrate before the Lord those forty days and forty nights because the Lord had said he would destroy you. I prayed to the Lord and said, “Sovereign Lord, do not destroy your people, your own inheritance that you redeemed by your great power and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Overlook the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin. Otherwise, the country from which you brought us will say, ‘Because the Lord was not able to take them into the land he had promised them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.’ But they are your people, your inheritance that you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.”

Chapter 9 is Moses’ prayer to God.

Chapter 10 is God’s response to Moses’ prayer.

Deuteronomy 10:1–2 NIV

At that time the Lord said to me, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones and come up to me on the mountain. Also make a wooden ark. I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Then you are to put them in the ark.”

Verse 1 & 2 Breakdown | The Ark of the Covenant

Moses is told to take the tablets, the Word of God, and place them in the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark would then go into the Tabernacle, the tabernacle residing in the heart of the Nation of Israel. At the heart of the nation, was the Tabernacle, at the heart of the Tabernacle was the Ark of the Covenant and inside of the Ark was the Law of God Himself.

That’s right where we need the word of God, we need it in the center of our lives.

We want the word of God:

In the center of our marriage In the center of our business In the center of our family In the center of our Church

We need the Word of God to be that which is at the center of our being.

Moses goes on in this sermon to mention the death of his brother, Aaron. The establishing of the Levites and then goes into the instructions for Israel from God in verses 12-13

Deuteronomy 10:12–13 NIV

And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?

Application:

This is a call not just to Israel but for all people. Our call is to do these Five things:

Fear the Lord your God

To fear God is absolute reverence and awe for an Almighty God, the Creator of all things. I like how Martin Luther contrasts two different kind of fears.

Servile Fear: He deems one to be “servile fear” which is the fear a servant would have with a malicious master, servile fear is the fear of harm or punishment.

Filial fear: By contrast he distinguished what he called “filial fear”, drawing from the Latin concept of family. It refers to the fear that a child has for his father. In this regard, Luther is thinking of a child who has tremendous respect and love for his father or mother and who dearly wants to please them. He has a fear or an anxiety of offending the one he loves, not because he’s afraid of torture or even of punishment, but rather because he’s afraid of displeasing the one who is, in that child’s world, the source of security and love.

Walk in obedience to Him

To Love Him

To serve Him

To observe His commands and decrees

Why? God says, “for your good.” You’ve been created by God, this world has been created by God. He knows what is “good” for us and what is not. Look at a life that refuses to live God’s way and contrast with the life that lives openly with God at the center of their life. There’s a difference. One produces good fruit and one does not. One walks in Joy and one does not. One has love, compassion, patience, the fruits of the Spirit and one obviously does not.

God is saying, if you want the best of what I’ve created for you, obey these commands. I’m holy, almighty and omnipotent either way, these commands are not for my good, they are for yours.

Deuteronomy 10:14–22 NIV

To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. Yet the Lord set his affection on your ancestors and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations—as it is today. Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. He is the one you praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes. Your ancestors who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.

Deuteronomy 11:1 NIV

Love the Lord your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always.

Application:

Remember chapter markers were not in this sermon that Moses was giving so he would have gone right from the end of 10 into 11 here. It was God has done all these things. Fear and serve Him, He is the one you praise, He is father to the fatherless, husband to the widow, fortress to the foreigner. He took 70 and made them millions. God chose you.

So now what. Love Him and keep His requirements, decrees, laws, and His commands.

He goes on to talk about the Israelite children who did not see the wonderful things that God had done for them. They didn’t see Israel freed from Egypt, they didn’t see what happened in the Red Sea, they didn’t see the cloud in the day and the pillar of fire by night. They didn’t see it. So keep these decrees and tell of what God has done to keep the faith alive.

We are to do the same things. Parents, I’m a youth pastor, I love working with teenagers but they will always value your experience with God so much more than mine. We get them 3 hours a week, the rest of the time is yours. Show them what God has done in your life, show them how much His word means to you. Let them catch you reading His word, let them catch you praying alone. Live a life that you wish them to live.

Listen, that old phrase “Do as I say not as I do.” Yeah, that’s bull manure. Your children will imitate you, are you being the person you want them to be?

Deuteronomy 11:10–12 NIV

The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden. But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.

Application:

In Egypt, they had the Nile that could retrieve their water from and water their gardens. The water was always there, even with little rainfall, so they would retrieve it and water their lands. That’s not the case for the land where God is taking them. They are going to the land of mountains and valleys that drink the rain from heaven.

You see, in Egypt they survived because of their own ability. In this land, they would survive by reliance on God. They didn’t have a backup plan, they were all in on relying on God. Either God provided or they died.

Life within the will of God is lived in reliance on God.

If you can accomplish it yourself, you are not relying on God. If you can do it, it’s not big enough.

A Whatever-You-Want God Attitude:

It’s funny because I feel like Jessica and I have accidentally lived the last few years like this. Trust me, I’m far far far from perfect.

When Jessica and I first came to Grace, I wasn’t even a Christian. I came not living right, not knowing the bible, not knowing how to pray. After we had been in attendance for a few months, we decided to come to a volunteer meeting. With the intent to do something, we loved what was going on here and I loved what I was learning so we wanted to help out.

Teresa, who was the youth pastor at the time, grabbed us and asked if we wanted to help with the youth. Yeah, absolutely. You see, we accidentally showed up with a “Whatever you want God, attitude.” We didn’t know what we would be asked to do but we would have done anything.

We all need a whatever-you-want-God attitude.

When we were asked to help with youth, we both said “yes.” In the car on the way home, we talked about how nervous we were and how unqualified we were. We weren’t the right people for the job, we didn’t deserve this, you want someone much much better than this for this. We don’t have it all together.

A couple months later, I would accept Jesus as my savior and accept His call to ministry.

A couple years after that, we are asked to take over the youth group and come on full-time here at Grace. Again, we said “Y’all got the wrong people. We are messed up! We are not qualified for that… like at all.”

My entire ministry has been a struggle between my insecurities and trusting in God’s ability.

We don’t deserve it.

I thought that I had these feelings of insecurity because of my past, because I became a Christian so late in life. Because I still don’t understand how this whole “church” thing is supposed to go, because I didn’t go to seminary, because I don’t have a perfect past, because I’m still bad with money, because I still get angry from time to time, because I still procrastinate and don’t have most things together.

But the more that I’ve talked with people and the more that I’ve gotten to know other Christians, I realize I’m not alone. We share these insecurities. Like, many Christians would not dare to serve God because they have a past. Many Christians will refuse to get up on a stage because someone may recognize them from Before. They wouldn’t dare lead a small group because they don’t know the bible that well.

Wait God, you want me to do what? No, no, no you got the wrong person. You want someone a whole lot better off than I am. We see our insecurities, we see the idols we’ve made, the sins we’ve given into, the temptations we’ve given into, the addictions that we have, we see the flaws we have within ourselves and we know we are undeserving of God’s grace. I know that I am undeserving of God’s call, I am undeserving by my own standards. By my own flawed standards, I am undeserving of the love and acceptance of Jesus.

I am undeserving of that but by the Grace of God, God says “I love you child, I have chosen you, I have set you apart, I have knit you together in your mother’s womb, I knew you before you born and I know every single one of your flaws and I still choose you. No not because of your righteousness but because of mine.”

Build-up to the Punchline:

This entire journey was a build-up for the punchline. The Israelites did not deserve the promised land but because of the mediation of Moses and the Grace of God, they would get what they did not deserve and they would not receive what they did deserve.

It’s because of the blood of Jesus that you are chosen, called, set apart and redeemed. God has given you a purpose, He has set before you an opportunity, a mission, and a calling.  Not because you deserved it but because of the Mediator and the Grace of God.