The Dangers of Comfort
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The Dangers of Comfort
The Dangers of Comfort
Big Idea: Human nature is to think less of God in times of comfort.
Big Idea: Human nature is to think less of God in times of comfort.
Winning the lottery or inheriting what you did not earn. The tendency is that the one who has received comfort, income, or other blessings that were not earned may either forget what the cost was or be unaware of what it would have taken for them to earn what they received as a gift.
God’s people were going to receive a great inheritance. One generation saw what God did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and one generation would see themselves delivered into the promised land. Yet even those generations would soon forget the mighty acts of God in their deliverance. How much more would future generations be in danger of not understanding or appreciating God’s deliverance; God’s Salvation?
Recap: Moses has just recalled the ten commandments, and reminded the people both of God’s powerful works in Egypt and in the wilderness, and also reminded the people of their own lack of faith and obedience, their rebellion against God. In our passage today, we will see that Moses has a reason to repeat certain themes over and over again. The theme of do not forget. The theme of loving God by keeping his commandments. The theme of teaching them to the children. The theme of having an educational system to do this. And this system is supposed to involve every activity of life, and every moment of their existence.
“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,
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.
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.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
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.
You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
“And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build,
and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full,
then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear.
You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you—
for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.
“You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.
You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies and his statutes, which he has commanded you.
And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers
by thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has promised.
“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?’
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.
And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes.
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.
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.
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.’
Our focus this morning is 10-25.
First, let’s look at 10-11. Deut 6:10-11
“And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build,
and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full,
Now, I mentioned at the start the potential dangers in an unearned inheritance. Now, this is not to say inheritance is bad. Certainly God gave an inheritance to Israel, and this was not a bad thing. But the potential is always there for people to get comfortable and forget what it took to get where they are.
This can happen in many areas of life. In fact, it happens all the time. A young man with a drive to succeed in his preferred career will put time, & effort, blood sweat and tears, into becoming a success. And after establishing a certain amount of success, he will decide it is time to enjoy the fruits of his labor. He buys some comfort items, maybe takes some more time off. He gets married and settles down. Now, there are a few paths at this point. One is to continue working with the same intensity and drive. The success may continue, but the wife and family get none of his time. Perhaps he set up a structure so that the success could continue, but he himself had less of the actual work, because he hired a good manager and employees to carry on what he started. In some cases, the young man gets too comfortable in the early success and as an older adult never again experiences the same fruit of his labors as those earlier days.
There are those also who have an opposite path, who start out with no direction or drive, but develop it as they mature. Some of those people end up very successful and satisfied.
Now Moses is telling the people this: You are about to enter the promised land, that God has promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, this promised land has been a long time coming. You are the generation who shall inherit it. You are going to enter cities you did not build. You are going to live in houses that you did not build, full of good things you did not obtain for yourselves. You will have water from cisterns you didn’t dig, you will have vineyards and olive trees to harvest from that you did not plant or cultivate.
This is the future for these people. It is an enormous blessing God is giving them. Basically walking into a complete world. What an amazing gift! And yet, can you see the danger in it? I know someone who sells helicopters for a living. He sells both to government and private companies and private individuals. In Palm Beach county, there are a number of people who live in houses they did not build, or pay for, and eat food that they have no real concept of what it takes to get, and they buy luxury goods. My friend the helicopter salesman told me he sells helicopters to some of these people. Literally adults who are in their 50s or older who have no concept of what it takes to earn a living. They inherited a trust fund, an estate, and not only do they have no concept of how they ended up with all that money, in some cases, they despise the very family they grew up in, that provided all that wealth!
Some of these people have never raked a leaf in their life, or run a vacuum cleaner, or washed dishes, or ever done laundry. They really have no clue about what their lifestyle costs. And it may seem ironic to us, but many of those who live a life of luxury built by someone else’s hard work tend to be promoters of socialism. They have no concept of what it takes to build wealth, they think it is easy, so it ought to be easy to provide everyone with everything. Ironically, they never volunteer to give up their own luxuries to make this happen.
The promised land was going to be an inheritance, and the danger was certainly there that like the trust fund billionaires who can buy a multimillion dollar helicopter just because, that the Israelites lack appreciation for what they had received.
And because of this potential, they are told:
then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
Don;t take the gift you have been given and then forget who provided it. He brought you out of Egypt and gave you all this land and property. He literally is taking them from slavery to living like kings. So,
Deut6.13-14
It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear.
You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you—
for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.
Fear God, this is not the sense of a terrifying fear of Him, this is the type of fear that is severance towards him, a sense of respectful awe. You shall serve him and not go after other gods. This is another danger of being in a comfortable situation. You can start to forget the God who has given you salvation and blessing. Just as children often do, when they leave the family home for the first time, they can forget all of the morals and standards they grew up on, and this is especially true if they have not ben trained to remember those things.
And just as the father who may leave the defiant child out of the will, God will not stand idly by while the people he has given this great favor to wander off into myths and worshiping other gods.
And now the people are given an historic example of the kind of rebellion they are to avoid.
“You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.
What is this referring to? Exodus17.2-7
Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?”
But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”
So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.
Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.
And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Don’t do this again, Moses is warning. Don’t question whether the Lord is with you, whether he can provide. Trust in Him rather than test Him. Instead, Deut6.17-19
You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies and his statutes, which he has commanded you.
And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers
by thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has promised.
Keep the commands of God. If you want you life to go as well as possible, obey the commands of God. We all know this experientially. When we violate God’s laws, our lives are much more difficult. It is a lesson most of us have kept learning. God has offered the Promised Land, but they needed to possess it. You shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may go well with you.
And finally, Moses predicts the questions that many children may ask: Deut6.20
“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?’
In other words, the son asking this question wants to know, why do you keep obeying these rules? Why do we have to follow this God? And this is why we must teach our children the history of our own faith. We can share with them not only the times it went well, but we can share with them our own failures and contrast this to God’s faithfulness. We tend to not want to talk about our own mistakes. Yet, look at what Moses does throughout. Not only does he remind them of God’s faithfulness, he reminds them of their own faithlessness. Why? Because when we contrast the goodness of God to our own rebellious nature, when we see Him being faithful when we were unfaithful, it shows Him to be the true God. It glorifies us to celebrate His faithfulness. And it brings us the humility we need to honor HIm. to submit to Him, to bow our knee before Him.
And the answer the child should receive, when they ask why we keep these testimonies and statutes and rules, the answer is this: God delivered us from having to serve an evil slave master, and since He delivered us, we now serve him,
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.
And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes.
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.
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.
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.’
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.
It is the right thing to do. What is righteousness? The state of being in the right. He brought us out of terrible oppression and slavery and showed us signs and wonders, great and grievous. He brought us out of there, and brought us to this land. And He did all this and commanded us to do these things, keep these statutes, to fear Him, why? For our good always, that he might preserve us alive.
Now, we could use this simply as an historic lesson. I bet some of would like to just leave it there. After all, if we do this, we could look at those Israelites, how they messed up by complaining in the wilderness, how they at times walked away form their God and worshipped idols, how at times they committed some abominable sins. Wouldn’t we just like to leave it there? Perhaps, but what then would we really learn? What good does it do to jus learn history and then repeat the mistakes of those who have gone before us? Why would we want to miss the opportunity to apply this lesson to ourselves? And is there any application? YES!
The application of this passage for the believer is this: We have an unearned salvation, and can quickly forget the cross and the cost of that salvation. The Israelites were slaves to Pharoah, but we were slaves to sin John8.34
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.
We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
But we were rescued from this slavery and now are slaves to righteousness.
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now this is good news! But it shows us how much we really do have to learn from what Moses is telling the Israelites in Deuteronomy 6. They were given commands to live by, so are we. Our commands come from our Lord Jesus. The sermon on the mount is one of many places where we find that Jesus gives us commands, not only like those the Israelites received, but even more strict in how we are to carry them out in many cases.
For the Israelites as for us, the keeping of those commands will make things go well with us. The Israelites were commanded to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Jesus affirms this command as the greatest command, so that His followers should also strive to keep it. The Israelites were told to teach these things to their children, and so in the New Testament, we see the charge to know the truth of the gospel, and for several reasons. Among those reasons is to that we can walk in a manner worthy of our calling. Another reason is so that we are not swayed by false teachers. Another reason is to receive a crown of glory.
And we also should teach these things by constant repetition. We should always have the truths of scripture before us, to hear them verbally, to read them, and to see them demonstrated in the lives of other believers. This is why it is so important to be a part of a local body of believers. We need each other. Our kids need to see us and others living out the faith as an example to them .
The Israelites were told to remember their deliverance from slavery, so they would not forsake the God who delivered them. We also are cautioned to not neglect this great salvation.
Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.
For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution,
how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard,
while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
As I was studying this passage for preaching this week and also studying the passage for D6, I saw a strong correlation to what we are saying here. I know some Christians would say something like this: We should stick mostly with the New Testament, because there is where we learn the gospel and how to live it out. Yet, we cannot ignore the clear lessons we can take away from a study like we are doing right now in Deuteronomy.
Let’s look at the second part of our passage from D6 this morning and see if there are not some clear parallels to what we see in Deuteronomy:
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear.
You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you—
for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.
Do all things without grumbling or disputing,
“You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.
that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,
You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you—
holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
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.
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.’
Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.
Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.
“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.
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,
but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,
God was the deliverer. He delivered the Israelites from slavery, and demanded their allegiance. He wanted his people to live in his commands in community, keeping each other accountable, and with humility and respect for God and one another. And so we as Christians are called likewise to humility and service to God and one another as well.
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy,
complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
May it be said of each of individually, and as God’s people here at Oasis Church, that we live out this in a way that the world around us can know we are the people of God.
Remember this:
Human nature is to think less of God in times of comfort.
We have an unearned salvation, and can quickly forget the cross and the cost.
Last week I closed with a reading form Revelation, today I want to close with this reminder that our hope is in the resurrection of Jesus, because we will also be raised like him, and knowing this is our inheritance, let us not neglect this great salvation, but choose to live for Him. Rom6.5-14
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
For one who has died has been set free from sin.
Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.
For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
We are not under law but under grace. This does not mean we can sin, as Paul goes on to vehemently deny, but rather a reminder that our salvation is an inheritance. We did nothing to earn it. It is a gift from God, and we cannot boast. Therefore, we live in the Kingdom of God now, but not as arrogant sons and daughters who just reap the benefits of the work of our Savior, but as those who want more than anything to honor that Savior with our lives, knowing that while we are saved, we are also being saved, as Paul wrote to the Corinthian church.
We do it with this hope, this promise, that we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
Let us strive ot live this life well for the glory of our King and Lord and Savior.
to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.