Sermon Tone Analysis

The Dangers 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.

Our focus this morning is 10-25.

First, let’s look at 10-11.

Deut 6:10-11

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:

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

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.

What is this referring to?

Exodus17.2-7

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

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

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,

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.