2-9-25 - That they would hear these words and do them

So This morning we've moved into Deuteronomy chapter six. Excuse me. Which could be summarized if you're to take the whole chapter and say what's Deuteronomy chapter six about? We could summarize it as God is going to give you a wonderful land that you didn't cultivate. A really expansive inheritance.

It's sort of like getting a letter in the mail that says, you never knew about this except they did know about it. But you're finally getting this thing and it's an incredible blessing and well treasure. That you didn't earn, don't deserve and haven't cultivated, but it's going to be yours. As you enter into that land to live in it, obey God and it'll go well with you. Don't forget why you have this land.

Don't think you earned it. Don't think you deserve it. You are entitled to it, actually. But only because God promised to give it to you. So don't forget God as you go into this land of of, milk and honey.

Remember God and worship him only. Our passage this morning is the first three verses of Deuteronomy six which introduced this exhortation. And in these verses, Moses gives a familiar exhortation. One that's been sort of a refrain over the last five chapters. Very simply, listen and obey.

Teaching your children and your grandchildren to do the same. And so my hope this morning is that God will humble us to receive his word and to obey it as they were exhorted to do just that. And that we wouldn't use our understanding or lack of understanding or our own wisdom or lack of wisdom or own agreement or assent to these things being good as any sort of excuse for not doing what God says. Would you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord from Deuteronomy chapter six. This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true.

Now this is the commandment, the statute and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you. That you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it. So that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God. To keep all his statutes and his commandments which I command you. All the days of your life and that your days may be prolonged.

Oh Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it. That it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly just as the Lord, the God of your fathers has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated.

Excuse me. Now, I'm gonna ask a question to start that we've asked before and answered, but we're gonna spend a little more time answering it today. And that question is, why did God give this law to these people? We're told in this passage in three different places, it says that you might do them and that you would keep all his statutes and his commandments and finally that you would be careful to do. So in answer to the question, why did God give us his law?

The simple answer is to be obeyed. He gave his law so that we would do what it says. Obedience as I've thought about it is an interesting topic. Some people, some Christians aren't concerned with obedience at all. They really are, Libertines and would say, we're free from any sort of obedience.

It doesn't have any concern. You're free to

do what you want. Doesn't matter what

you do or don't do. We're saved by grace not by works and so obedience is in is is is obsolete. There are others who are only concerned with obedience when it affects them. Meaning, I care about obedience as long as I care I care that you obey in so far as if you don't it will hurt me or someone I care about. I want you to obey if something I care about will be harmed by your disobedience.

But otherwise, do what you want. Still others, and I think this is probably more common in our circle, are only concerned about being obeyed. And not about their own obedience to those above them. We think of obedience, as it being a a top down structure, and it is. The failure is we put ourselves at the top of the structure.

And what that means is that everyone beneath us needs to obey. But that there's no one for us to obey. There's no one over us. The question that we have to ask is, do any of us really care if God is obeyed? Now, none of us would say, no I don't care.

We would all say, yeah I care. Of course we do. How does it differ when it's our obedience versus someone else's obedience? Do you parents care more about your children's obedience to God than you do about your own? Or maybe another way to ask it is, do you care more about their obedience to you than you do about your obedience to God?

You older siblings, maybe your younger siblings. Do you care as much about your children, your siblings doing what they're told? Do you care as much about you doing what you're told as them doing what they're told? Maybe you care whether they do what they're told so that you don't end up with their work. That's how it is at my house.

They're careful to make sure the other kids obey because they know that if the kid that was supposed to do the thing doesn't do the thing, that mom and dad are liable to grab whoever's handy and say, go do the thing. And then when they say, that's not my job. We go, it is now. And that's just, it's it's it's thoroughly unjust in their minds. But it's

not unjust.

And so, we need to consider, do we care about our obedience as much as we do about others? If we're fathers, if we only care that our children obey us and not our wives, there's a failure. If we're parents and we only care that our children obey us, but we aren't concerned if they obey their teachers or their coaches or their, the parent in the hallway who tells them to stop screaming and yelling in the echo chamber out there. It's a problem. If we're only concerned about, if we're bosses, we're only concerned about our employees' obedience.

You have to realize there's a problem with that. There's a real problem with that. We're only concerned with other people's obedience and disobedience as it affects us. But you do realize that that's a godless way of thinking. None none there's no concern in any of that for whether God be obeyed.

Only whether our lives are comfortable. So Moses whole point here is not that he be obeyed and I do want to take just a second here and point out to you that the word me in verse one where he says, which the Lord your God has commanded me, is not actually in the text. It's supplied by the translators. Okay. And it does change the meaning of, it could change the meaning of the verse.

Does it read differently to you or or hit you differently if it says now this is the commandment statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you. That's the Hebrew. That's what it says. Me is Moses or the translators teaching us that it's Moses that's to be obeyed. But is it Moses that's to be obeyed?

It's only Moses that's to be obeyed insofar as he's obeying God by teaching them. The people are supposed to obey God. Right? That's the concern. Moses isn't the is not the point.

You as parents, you as husbands, you're not the point. It's not really about you. And if you think that it's about you, you're in rebellion. It's not really about you. Our goal from this text is to understand that God is concerned not that Moses be obeyed, but that he be obeyed.

And it was gracious of him to send Moses to the people to communicate his word and his will and his law to them. But Moses is

a fallen man. A sinful man.

A man who's not going to be there forever.

And so God tells them that they need

to learn to obey and not just them, but their son and their grandson. He's he's indicating, your leaders are going to come and your leaders are going to go. They're going to be sinful and they're going to to deviate and be good, better or worse. But my word, my law, that's what must be obeyed. I must be obeyed, says the Lord.

Regarding that word being supplied, the word me. The translators are doing it to try to make the, the, the text more readable to us. And my thinking about it is that we need translators because not everybody's going to learn Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic and all the nuances of it. There's people who devote their entire lives to it. And the fact is, we're dependent on them.

And the reason I like the new American standard 95, I know there's a twenty twenty out now, I don't recommend that one because they've changed their principles of translation and they've gotten rid of a lot of male inclusive stuff and a lot of things that refer to the Jews. However, I know the new American standards kind of clunky to read. The thing I appreciate about it and I want you to appreciate about it and to become a student of, is that they show their work better than other translations do. Okay? I was reading and preparing for this yesterday and I was I was I was noticing all of the the little letters and numbers.

You ever notice a little tiny letters and numbers that are next to the words of scripture? Some of your Bibles probably don't have those. I realized when I got home that none of my kids Bibles have that. They're not reference Bibles. They're just, they have the text but they don't have the the like, well we translated that word this way.

Or here's a cross reference for that that that phrase somewhere else. Their Bibles don't have it. They're new, they're the New American Standard, but they don't have it. My Bible does. My encouragement to you would be, if you don't have a Bible that has that stuff in it, a reference Bible, you should get one.

That's not a study Bible. It's a reference Bible. And you should know why the translators are translating things the way they are. Or that there's a different translation. And sometimes a better translation.

That'll just be in the little footnote down there. So when you read Scripture, Eric's always encouraging us and pushing us. Like you have to read the Bible. You're Christian. You have to read the Bible.

You have to read the Bible. I want to add on top of it, you have to pay attention while you read it. You're not just threading the words through your eyes. If the words are in italics, I would challenge you, every time you see italics, cut them, cut the words out. And just read the verse again and be like, can I make sense of that?

And if you can, then you can say, I didn't need those words. Because they're not actually there in the original text. If you see the little letters, the letters tend to indicate, if I'm, if I understand their their principles, the letters indicate the cross references. Another passage or passages that refer to the same idea or word that type of stuff. The numbers are where they have translated the word one way, but they could have translated it a different way.

They sort of show their work. Okay? As Christians, you should read God's word and you should understand it. It doesn't mean you have to learn Hebrew and Greek, but you should pay attention to this stuff. And it's the kind of stuff you can talk about in devotions.

Hey, they translated it this way or they changed that or they left this part out or they supplied these other words and how does, what does that all mean? How does it influence what's said here? It's gonna become increasingly more important as our society goes further and further away from the Word of God and wanting to trim and cut away the, the meaning of God's words and his, the words themselves. So, yeah. Some, it's interesting.

John said the, the numbers will indicate literal. And sometimes it says, you'll read the number and it will say lit, literally, this is what the word means. Or sometimes it will say also. Or it'll say or this. And so you read it.

And that's their little note. It's like when you went to math class and your math teacher was like, I don't just want the answers, I want you to show your work. And no one likes showing their work. Everyone's like, we have calculators for that. We don't need to show our work.

The blessing and the kindness of those who translated the New American Standard 1995 edition is, they show their work. And if you read it carefully you'll find there are places that they probably made the wrong decision. No one's perfect. We don't hate them for it. It's a faithful translation.

It's not a perfect translation, it's a faithful translation. So, all of that by way of saying the word me is not in the text. The Lord is concerned that we learn his law. And he's concerned that we learn his law so that we obey his law. He's actually really concerned about that.

Okay? We're not saved by it and yet he is very concerned that we obey him. James talks about, us being effectual doers as opposed to just mere hearers of the Lord. Okay? I've pushed you before to say you should learn the 10 Commandments.

All of them. Not the short, but the long version. That's just the first step. Getting the words into your head, even if you have the words perfect, it's not you're not done. You've now got the basic tools to then go obey them and figure out what they mean and what they require and what they forbid.

That's actually the point. So Moses whole point here in saying this, it's not that he would be obeyed. He's not concerned with his obedience, with them obeying him primarily. Nor should we as parents or husbands be primarily concerned about our authority being honored and our word being obeyed. We should always be concerned with God being obeyed.

You'll notice that in this passage, there's teaching and there's obedience. What's missing from the process, but in in our minds between teaching and obedience? Say it out loud. Well listening is actually does mention listening. Yes.

It would be good to listen. Oh, that you should listen and do. What's missing is understanding. What's missing is agreement. Isn't that interesting?

God says, I want to speak, I want you to listen and I want you to do. Well, what if I don't understand? I want you to listen and I want you to do. What if I don't agree? I want you to listen and I want you to do.

What if you're wrong? He's never wrong. He's never wrong.

Understanding and agreement are not precursors to obedience. They're not precursors to obedience. You understand this as parents. Right? Why daddy?

Why? At some point your kids ask why enough and you say no more why? No more why? No more why? Go do what I said.

But

no more buts. Go do what I said. What are you

what are you what are you curtailing when you say no more of that? You're saying no more asking for understanding. I told you what to do and you're capable of it, so go do it. I told you what to do and I didn't ask for your opinion. I didn't ask

you to judge it. It's not your place to judge it, child,

son, daughter. It's your job to do. So why do we understand it

with our kids but don't understand it with God?

Why do we allow ourselves the latitude to question God when we would never allow people to question us? There's no other explanation other than just hypocrisy. We're more concerned with ourselves and our and us being honored and obeyed than we are about God. And that's backwards. It shouldn't be that way.

Right? This whole in the scripture lesson we read last week in John three and then picks up again here in John four, you can see this like brewing conflict Where John's disciples in chapter three, they come to Jesus, they come to John and they're like, hey John, you know what Jesus is doing? He's over there. He's baptizing people. And they're and they're asking, isn't that a problem?

Is isn't that your job? Isn't he detracting from your glory and your place and your role? And he goes, hey, the bride belongs to the bridegroom and and the attendant is happy when the bridegroom speaks. I have to decrease but he has to increase. So John puts it to rest and says, you guys are head, you're thinking about this all wrong.

You're all concerned about my position and my respect and my prominence. It's not about me. And then it comes again in chapter four and it says, well, Jesus was baptizing more people than John was. Isn't that a doesn't that didn't you see the conflict in that? There's like this constant acknowledgement of like, but who who isn't John important?

John, don't you care that you're important? And then it says, it's actually not even Jesus who's doing it. It's it's his disciples. So we'll give we'll we'll give room that it would that that Jesus is better than you, but these are his disciples. I mean, you're John.

John wasn't in the least bit upset that he would decrease and that God would be glorified. And that's how we ought to be. But we have to be able to say and mean that we don't matter as much as we think we do. But God does. And so agreement and understanding are not precursors to obedience.

We expect our children to obey. We expect those on our teams that are we're responsible for to do what we require of them. And God expects the same thing of us, that we would listen and that we would obey. And that's really a hard muscle to exercise these days. Yet it is what will make Christians different than all the rest of the world.

If you want to know what it means to be salt and light in the world, if you want to know what it means to live publicly as a Christian, just do what God says. And tell people that you're doing it because God said so. You'll stand out. You'll stand out. You don't have to be an eloquent speaker.

You don't need you don't need to go to school to learn how to talk about it. You don't need to wait ten years. You just seem to love the things that God loves and order your life around the things that that he says is are important. And you will be different. You'll do different things with your time.

You'll do different things with your money. And you'll be happy about it. And it'll just be incomprehensible to the world. As I was preparing I was thinking if I if someone was telling me this I would not like it. And I would be arguing against it in my head.

And I would quote James one where he says, but if any of you lacks wisdom let him ask for God. Shouldn't don't shouldn't we want to understand? Shouldn't we want to agree with the things that God calls us us to do? And I say yes. The desire to understand and the desire to agree, those are good things.

A lack of those things doesn't get us off the hook though. So James says, if any of you lacks wisdom let him ask of God who gives to all generously and without reproach and he will it will be given to him. But he referring to the one lacking wisdom, he must ask with faith, ask in faith without any doubting. And have you ever wondered what they might doubt? What might the one who lacks wisdom have doubts about?

The goodness of what they're being told. The appropriateness of it. They have doubts about whether it's good or not. Whether they should follow through. He must ask in faith without any doubting for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.

For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord. Being a double minded man. Unstable in all his ways. How is it that a man is double minded? How is it that he's unstable in all his ways?

By refusing to do what God says until he understands and agrees that it's what should be done. That is the that is that is a well worn path to hell. I won't do what God says until I understand it. But the scripture tells us right now that if you don't ask in faith, God's not going to tell you how it works. Have you not learned things in your life after you started doing them?

That it was a good idea? And so if you had refused to do the good thing, the wise thing because you didn't understand it was the wise thing, you would have been the one who suffered as a result. And so God is really gracious and demonstrates that he knows us really well. And when he says simply listen and obey. And if you lack understanding in your in your obedience, ask for wisdom and understanding.

And God is generous and will explain it to you. You'll wanna come to understand it. To ask in faith is to be inclined as to the goodness of God and his law. It means that when God requires something of you or says something that catches your attention or rubs you the wrong way. Your first thought is not God doesn't know what he's talking about.

Your first thought is I don't understand what I need to understand. You end up finding fault and having suspicions of yourself and not of God. But that's not true of the man who's double minded. He wants to be very judicious. He wants to be careful to do exactly what God requires.

He's like, I can't do it because I don't understand it yet. When in point of fact, that's not what's going on. What's going on is he's making an excuse. Have you never refused to do something and claimed you didn't understand, but what was really going on was you just didn't want to do it. Have you never said, Oh, I forgot.

You didn't forget. You didn't listen and the reason you didn't listen is because you had no intention of doing it. You're like, I don't need to listen because I'm not going to obey. Why waste my time listening if I'm not going to do what you say anyway? Why do you think God tells us to rebuke a factious man twice and then have nothing to do with him?

Why don't you just keep going after him? Because he's not listening. And he has no intention of obeying. So stop talking. God is true.

His word is the truth and if there's ever a conflict in our hearts or minds between what it requires of us and our will to do it, the problem lies with us. Every single time. Every single time. In Romans three, Paul asks the question, then what advantage has the Jew or what is the benefit of circumcision? He answers great in every respect.

First of all, they were entrusted with the oracles of God. And then he asked another question, well what then? Because we're like, well there's problems with the Jews. What then? If some did not believe their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it?

And you realize that in this questioning, in this back and forth, what we want is everything to be understandable and neat and tidy and clean. If the Jews are the people of God, then all of the Jews will believe. And if all the Jews don't believe then isn't that God's fault? That's the way, that's the argument that's going on that Paul's working his way through that he's arguing around. And so he says, may it never be.

Rather, let God be found true though every man a liar. As it is written that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged. So God gave us his law to be obeyed not to be judged or even initially understood, but to be obeyed. This is what you want of your children. This is what God wants from us.

This is not something to be fought against. This is something to be accepted, to be embraced. God does care that you do exactly what he says right now.

If you

as parents want your children to believe in Jesus and go to heaven, this is probably the single most important thing that you can do to contribute

to them believing in Jesus and going to heaven. That you listen to God

and you do what he says. Moses exhorts us that you might do them, the commandments, the statutes and the judgments. That you might do them in the land where you were going over to possess it so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God, to keep all his commandments and his statutes, which I commanded you all the days of your life, that your days may be prolonged. Do you guys know what comes after, our text in the next section in Deuteronomy? It's called the great Shema or the great Shemer.

It's part of a Jewish prayer. It says, the Lord our God, the Lord, he is one. And then has the greatest commandment. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. And then it talks about how you should sit with your children and you should walk with your children and you should teach your children all of the ways of God.

But here's the thing about your interactions with your children. If they hear you say it, but they don't see you do it, they're gonna follow your actions, not your words. So we'll come to that in due time as we come to this text. But his concern is that our children and our grandchildren would learn to fear him and they will learn that by what we do much more than by what we say. Unless of course what we're saying is I have failed at this point and I don't want you to fail.

If we as parents don't fear the Lord in explicit ways, meaning if we don't guard what we say and and decide what we do, according to the law of God, then our worship of God will be false. And we will teach our children to worship in the same way. We should fear God. And the measure of whether we fear God. Like how do we know if we fear God?

The measure of it is not whether we live our lives mostly sad and depressed. That's actually has no bearing on whether you fear God. Being sad and upset all the time does not mean you fear God. Rather, we can know whether we fear God by whether or not we obey God. As you go on in your life, there are going to be things that they're gonna be they're gonna be forks in the road where you have to decide, am I gonna do this or am I gonna do that?

And sometimes it will just be a a decision that has to be made and sometimes there will be spiritual implications for that decision. Am I going to do this? And I believe that honors God or am I gonna do this, which I believe is more comfortable and easy. And you'll be afraid to do the thing that honors God. And your flesh and probably people around you will be telling you, do the thing that's comfortable.

Do the thing that's easy. You can live to fight another day. You don't have to make such a big deal out of it. As you go on in life and as you walk through those forks in the road, and I'll tell you, you won't stand at those forks in the road. You will decide.

You will pick. As you go on, you'll have opportunity to make those kinds of decisions. And those, and and the evidence of your fear of God will be which thing you chose. And so if you go through your life and you never say my life has taken this turn or is is is has has this flavor to it because of the decisions I made in an effort to honor God,

then you should conclude that

you don't fear God. If you can say over time, we've done these things, we've made these choices in an effort to serve God because we fear him and we want to we want to give our lives to him and love him with all of our heart, soul and mind and strength like the text tells us, the next text tells us, then you'll be able to say so. And that will be evidence that you fear and love God. Feeling bad about your sins? Doesn't mean you fear God.

Feeling really bad about it? Telling other people how bad you are? Telling them how much you don't deserve any of God's grace? Doesn't matter. Hello beans.

Doesn't please God. Unless it leads to actual repentance and actual obedience. Feeling bad is worldly sorrow. Feeling bad that you've offended God and working to to honor him and amend your ways, that does honor God.

And so we do have

to guard ourselves against ever thinking that feeling bad, even about our sins is fear of God. It's not the fear of God and it doesn't lead to wisdom. It's a, it's, it's a, it's a different currency than what God than what we've used with God. He says, oh, Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it.

That it may be well

with you and that you may multiply greatly just as the Lord, the God of your fathers has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey. I want to note that this land they're going into, a land flowing with milk and honey is a land of abundance. A land of plenty. A land of pleasure. A land of wealth.

It's a good place. No one would have looked at it and said, I don't want to go there. Okay. We might, you know, for me, I might look at the wealthy parts of town and say, I don't want to go there. For my, for my part, if I could go live up in the wealthier parts of, like, on the North Side, I would never want to go live up there.

But it's not because of necessarily because of the wealth, it's because of how susceptible I would be to be corrupted by it. That's why I wouldn't want to go live up there. I've got enough temptations otherwise. I don't need to go live around people who are wealthy. It will not help me.

But I would want to

go live in this land, this land that God's giving to them. There's a danger that comes with going to live in that land and it's that they would think that it was theirs and that they had earned it. That they were entitled to it in a way that, made God their debtor. What they have to remember and what we have to remember is the questions that Paul asks in first Corinthians four. What do you have that you did not receive?

What do you have that you did not receive? We might say, I don't have anything and I'd say, then you're blind. Then you're blind. You all have many good things. Every single last one of us has many good things.

Do you have burdens as well? Sure. Many more good things than hard things though. What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

Why do you take the credit for it? Why don't you give glory to the one who gave it to you? That's the question. And that's the danger that they're gonna face as they go into this land of of bounty. Is to think, we deserve this.

We are entitled to it. No one can take it away from us because we got it by our own strength. Another danger and maybe perhaps a more insidious one is that they will then look down on the other people who don't have the good things they have and despise them thinking that they're better than those who don't have the same good things. Our call to confession had the the second half of this text, right? The Pharisee comes in and says, I thank you Lord that I'm not like these sinners.

That's the exact thing that they are being warned against is that they would not look down on other people thinking that they are better than them. But when you have nice things and you have good things, that's the temptation that comes along with it. You always look down and say, well, God must like me better because he's given me these things. You must not be as good of a person. You must not be as smart.

You must not be as faithful.

It's

an interesting thing about faithfulness if you read in Hebrews, chapter 11. Do you remember how it describes all of those who died in faith without receiving the promises? Do you remember what it said about them? That they were men of whom the world was not worthy. They were the best men and women.

They were the best ones. And if you look at the things they went through, it was the hardest, most difficult stuff you can imagine. And they were the type of people

of whom the world was not worthy. But we get it backwards.

We say, no, the people who are the best ones are the ones who have all the good stuff. And if people don't have the good things, there must be something wrong with them. They haven't worked hard for them. They haven't earned it. They haven't sacrificed.

This is antithetical to how the gospel works. Yes. We do reap what we sow, But we often reap what others have sown. And if we are able to sow good seed, it's because God sown it in us first and made us able to do it. And so there is nothing in you that you should boast of.

In Romans seven, Paul says, for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. For the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. Paul is lowering himself. He calls himself the chief of sinners. He says, I'm the scum.

I'm the dregs and it's not for rhetorical effect that he says those things. He understands what kind of sinner he is and that all of the good stuff he has was given to him by God. Do you think that way? Do we think that way? We have to think that way.

We have to cut discipline ourselves to think and see ourselves in that way. So that we can praise God for all of the good things that he gives to us and be protected from our pride and our entitlement. God gave the Israelites in this land an incredible inheritance because he chose to. Not because their fathers were the greatest men ever. He chose to and promised it to them.

Their fathers didn't earn it any more than they did. This land was simply a gift of God to wicked men because of the depth and the mercy. The depth of the mercy and grace of God. It was his pure kindness. They were no better than the people that didn't receive this land.

They were entirely unfit to receive it. And we're going to face temptations because of their own weaknesses in receiving it. Nevertheless, God gave it to them. And the thing they had to keep watch of was, don't forget God who gave you these things and don't look down on the others because you're not any better than them. And so you are not better than poor people.

You're not better than poor people. You're not morally better than them. God doesn't like you more than them. It's just not true. You're not better than brown

people. You really aren't. Not even a little bit. Not better than them.

You're not better than illegals? Not even a little bit. You may be an American and they may not be. You are not morally superior to them. Do you not sin?

Do you

not look at them and go, Oh, well, the Tower Of Siloam applies here. Do I look at them and think, well, the tower fell on them because they were worse sinners than me? No. I venture to say that if we had to go live in miserable squalor and danger that we would do a whole bunch of things to get our family out of it. And the legality of it wouldn't be the thing that would keep us there.

It really is true of us. No one to admit

it, but it really is true of us. You're not better than the Jews. There really is no one you're better than. You're not special.

This is the thing that

the Jews in this passage has to be warned against. You're going to receive a really good thing and you're gonna think you deserve it and you don't. The fact that you're receiving it is a demonstration of God's kindness, not of your superiority. So be careful not to think you're superior. That's the warning in this.

And you'll see this warning teased out over the next couple of chapters in Deuteronomy. This really is the warning. And I really do mean to be leaning on you and saying, you really do have to realize you're not special. And if you are special, it's because God chose you. It's not because he looked and said, well that's he, he's gonna be, he's an All Star, so he can be on my team.

He's an American, so he can be on my team. He's got the right color skin, so he can be on my team. The poor and the despised and the rejected, God loves. The orphan and the widow are the ones that he comes and cares for.

So how should you respond to the

many good things that God gives to you? How should the Israelites respond in being given this land? Not in the pride that I've just described. The appropriate response to God's grace and mercy is to seek it for others who aren't yet his children. That's actually the appropriate response.

To want other people to have the good thing you have. And you have to realize if somebody else gets what you have, you won't have any less of it. If you wanna keep his mercies to yourself, then you're greedy and proud. And that's not how you ought to live as a Christian because it's sinful and his law forbids it. You ought to love God with all of your heart soul mind and strength.

And the second commandment is you ought to love your neighbor as yourself. You should want for the poor and downtrodden and brown people and illegals and Jews, you should want for them the good stuff you've got. And you should act on that desire. You should act on it. It's not enough to say it.

It's worthless if all we do is say it. It's hypocrisy if all we do is say it. You should act on it. This coming week, you should strike up a conversation or 10 with somebody that you don't know. Not with the purpose of having a five to seven minute interaction where you can tell them that they should believe in Jesus.

You should take an interest in them and get to know them. They're your co workers. You see them on a regular enough basis. They're your neighbors. You see them on a regular enough basis.

Do you want them to have what God's given to you that you didn't deserve? Or do you just wanna keep it for yourself? Do you love sinners or not? Have you told them how Jesus can set them free from their sins? How he set you free from your sins?

Are you willing for them to know who you actually are? This is the appropriate response to receiving such mercy and kindness from God. So don't bury your talents in the ground and certainly don't bury the mercies of God in the ground. If God's been good to us as he's been good to the Israelites in giving them this land, then our response should be to tell other people about it. To love them and to care for them.

To have pancake breakfast where like 10 people show up and you have to go talk to people who are different

than you. Everyone of you guys who wasn't here missed out on the opportunity. And you weren't doing something more important. Unless you were going and doing something like that somewhere else.

I didn't want to come to the pancake breakfast because I looked at the work and was like this, I have to be the greeter and smile and say hi and it's really uncomfortable, weird. I don't know what to do. But if you love God,

and if he's been good to you, then you should

look for opportunities to serve him and to and to communicate the love that you've received back to other people. I think the pancake breakfast was a success. I'm not disappointed that there were 10 people. I was encouraged by everyone who was here and I was encouraged of the efforts that we made and I'm sure I suspect you all felt as as inadequate as I did. But you did it.

We did it. And I hope we do it again. And I hope more of us come. And I hope more visitors and neighbors come. And I hope God fills our hands with problems we don't know how to solve.

That's what I hope he does. Because we've been given a lot of good things. And we

have to call others to receive those good things and to walk with us in obeying God. Every little bit of what he says because he's loved us and given us his son. And the scripture asks us, how will he who's give who's given us his son not freely give us all other things? Being a Christian is really a privilege and a really sweet thing. We have to

tell other people about it. That's what it means to obey God's law. Love God, love your neighbor. Let's pray.