Transcript
Speaker: Good morning and welcome to Grove Hill Church. Good to have you with us, especially those new faces I see out there this morning. Thankful you've chosen to worship with us. It really is an honor that you would come and be a part of this worship.
Speaker: um God's doing some really cool things. and We like to talk about the fact that we can change the world from right here where we are, and we are in the process of doing that as we speak.
Speaker: Lewisburg, a new church. We're working on partnerships with some other churches as we continue our focus towards multiplication, sending a mission train trip, journey team, whatever. I can't say the word.
Speaker: A group of people going to Guatemala you know just the next week for the mission journey. There's another one going in September. If you're interested in being a part of a trip, you've never done that, I encourage you to talk to Kelly. You're on the wrong side of the room today. You're usually over here.
Speaker: ah Kelly, have an opportunity to talk with her more about that, sending a group to Colorado this weekend with a partnership with the church that we have out there. And then also later this month, we're going to be sending dozens and dozens of Bibles, right?
Speaker: Hindi Bibles to pastors in India. Because of your faithfulness of giving to the One World, One Hope, we have the privilege of doing that. And so through our Lifeway partnership, we're going to be buying Bibles to send to them. They say that's the number one need of Christians in that country. Now, if you don't know anything about what's going on, you're one of those that didn't pay much attention to the news, India is one of those places where severe persecution of the Christian church is going on.
Speaker: I'm excited.
Speaker: as we send those bibles i encourage you to be praying for those pastors that will be receiving them as they continue to share the the word of god um i'm excited as we continue through the chronological reading of the bible um it's ah I told the first hour, it's kind of a mixed blessing for me in doing this.
Speaker: It's mixed in the sense that, number one, as I'm trying week after week to try to figure out which passage we're going to preach, I know that every week I'm skipping over some really cool stories. and And some of you are going, wait a minute, why didn't you preach that story? That's a really good story. And and please know that every every week as I'm preparing sermons, I'm doing the same thing.
Speaker: There haveve even been places where I've gone, maybe I could fit this one in and we'll just bump the schedule back a little bit. But unfortunately, we can't do that. I promise you next year we're going to come back. We're going to go even deeper into this and as our as we go through the Bible.
Speaker: The blessing side of it is this is probably like the... ah The 12th time I think I've read through the scriptures, either chronologically or just straight through. And every time I read it, I am amazed at this book we call the Bible.
Speaker: The way God connects the dots for us. And for those of you who have never done this, and and this is your first time, or maybe just for whatever reason decided not to do it this time...
Speaker: Here's the difference between reading through the Bible versus just doing what most of us do, which is pick a story here, pick a passage there, favorite verse of scripture there. It's like walking into the middle of an hour-long conversation between two friends and catching five minutes of the middle of the conversation and going, okay, now I have to figure out what they've been talking about and where the conversation is going to go from here.
Speaker: You're you're in in the middle of a story that's been written over thousands of years, and God has been so kind and gracious to put it together for us in such a way that we can follow this story, we can learn more about his character, we can learn more about his plan for humanity.
Speaker: And if all you're doing is just reading excerpts here and there and not even reading them in order, many times you miss the significance of why certain things are happening. So all of that to encourage you that if you're reading along and you've stumbled along the way and you're falling a little bit behind, do not despair.
Speaker: Just keep on moving. I might even encourage you pick up. We're in week 12, I think, this week of the reading plan. Jump ahead because next week we're getting into book of Joshua. And I would encourage you to go there and just kind of stay with us and keep reading and follow along on the podcast, all those different things.
Speaker: Today we're at Deuteronomy 30. If you remember last week in in Numbers, we were wrapping up the journey of the Hebrew people after they had gone to the border of the Promised Land the first time.
Speaker: Listen to the ten spies who came back with the negative report. They were... They were forced by God back out into the wilderness, basically because of their poor choice. He sends them back into the wilderness. They wander for 38 more years.
Speaker: And today, as we pick up the story, they are back at the edge of the promised land. Moses is still with them, but he's in his final days. And so what we're going to read today is quite literally his last few words to his people to encourage them and to remind them of the things that God has done and to remind them of the covenant that God had created with them.
Speaker: Now, somebody earlier this week on our Facebook page that we created for this reading plan asked the question, why did he do this? Why is he repeating this again? Well, first of all, we all forget things, right?
Speaker: We all have a tendency to do that, and so God throughout the scriptures is constantly either himself or through Moses or Joshua or others is reminding us over and over and over again of his plan for humanity and how we've missed that point.
Speaker: But in this particular instance, it's really important because as we said, they've wandered for 40 years in the wilderness, and by the time they reach the border the second time, this is an entirely new generation that has moved into adulthood.
Speaker: And so many of them don't know the stories like they should or maybe don't know the details of the covenant. And so Moses wants to step in and say, first of all, you're going to be without excuse because I'm going to make sure you know everything that the last generation knew i'm going to make sure that you know exactly what God has promised you.
Speaker: And I want to make sure that you know it well. But the other thing is, there's a significant transition that's about to take place because it's been Moses who's been the leader for the last 40 years, and Joshua is fixing to move into that position.
Speaker: You'll remember that Moses was punished for his disobedience and told, you won't get to go into the promised land. Now, just for for a second, I want you to put yourself in Moses' shoes. He has spent the last 80 years on this assignment.
Speaker: First, being trained in Gideon to be a shepherd, to live in the wilderness, having that whole burning bush experience. He goes back to Egypt. He does all of the plagues. He makes a stand in front of Pharaoh and the in the the courtroom, if you will, of the largest empire in the world at that time.
Speaker: He then leads these people on a 40-year journey through the wilderness, listens to them whine and complain and bellyache and never be happy. And he finally gets them to the border and God says, here's what's going to happen.
Speaker: They're going to go into the promised land. You're not going to get to go. And after you're gone, they're going to fall apart start worshiping other gods and they won't last there very long anyway. Moses is probably going, are you kidding me?
Speaker: For 80 years I've invested in this and this is the results we get. Now it won't be immediate. It's probably about 400 years between the time they enter the promised land and and the time that they are dispersed across the ah Middle East because of invasions by the Persians and the Assyrians and the Babylonians.
Speaker: But the truth is, Moses in this moment is preparing them for this great transition. It is Joshua that's going to lead them into the promised land. It's Joshua that's going to help them to conquer that land.
Speaker: And Joshua who will be the leader for a brief period of time before they enter into the next stages of Israel's history. okay So Deuteronomy chapter 30, we're going to begin in verse 11 today.
Speaker: And what I want to do is I want to take a look at this covenant and what it meant for those people then. But and more importantly, what it means for you and I now. You need to understand as we read through the Old Testament, there are passages of Scripture that apply specifically to the Hebrew people that do not apply to us. okay Promises that are made to them that don't apply to us. And you're familiar with many of them because many times we'll take them because they sound so sweet and so wonderful. We'll put them on our refrigerator or we'll post them as a meme on social media.
Speaker: And the truth is they don't apply to us. But the reason God puts them in Scripture is because he wants us to see the character of the God who is behind those promises. Okay?
Speaker: We'll point those out as we get to them later as we're going through some of these Old Testament books. But just keep in mind that not everything that's done in the Old Testament is meant to apply to us specifically where we are today.
Speaker: And so that's why today as we're unpacking this covenant, I want to be specific in what applies to us and what doesn't. Verse 11, it says, this command that i give you today is certainly not too difficult or beyond your reach it is not in heaven so that you have to ask who will go up to heaven get it for us and proclaim it to us so that we may follow it and it's not across the sea so that you have to ask who will cross the sea get it for us and proclaim it to us so that we may follow it But the message is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may follow it.
Speaker: See, today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and adversity. For I am commanding you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commands, statutes, and ordinances, so that you may live and multiply.
Speaker: And the Lord your God may bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not listen and you are led astray to bow and worship to other gods and serve them, I tell you today that you will certainly perish and will not prolong your days in the land you are entering to possess across the Jordan.
Speaker: I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.
Speaker: Love the Lord your God, obey Him, and remain faithful to Him. For He is your life, and He will prolong your days as you live in the land the Lord swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Speaker: The first thing we see here in Moses' farewell speech is that God's command is understandable. He specifically says it's not too difficult nor out of reach.
Speaker: You know, we have a tendency to overcomplicate the plans that God has for mankind. We take simple promises or simple promise that God has made to us and we we complicate it and usually in the name of religion.
Speaker: We'll add rituals. We'll add ah professions of faith. We add all these different things to it to to add layers to it and it. becomes such a complex thing. Very simply, what God says to these people is, I've given you commands. You obey them. You're going to be good.
Speaker: Don't obey them. Not going to go well for you. You probably are familiar with that kind of conversation because you have that same conversation with your kids quite often, right? Listen to your mom and dad. Things will go well for you.
Speaker: Don't listen. you will be sold on eBay. Right?
Speaker: Maybe not quite that bad, but that's pretty much the way it rolls out of our tongue, you know? you You either listen or you don't listen. That's the choice that God has given us. We make it way more difficult than it has to be.
Speaker: Moses reassures Israel that with God's help, they can obey these commands. Now this contrast, this this language in here contrasts the idea of the ancient world where it says, who's going to cross the sea and go get it for us? Or who's going to go up to heaven and get it for us?
Speaker: You've probably remembered this maybe some of your Greek mythology classes that you may have had or or other classes like that from ancient history. Many of the religions of that day and age, religion was about a pursuit, a quest you had to take to go find truth.
Speaker: You had to go seek it out. You might remember some of the stories where Human beings had to climb Mount Olympus to get to a god or had to have some kind of interaction with a god or defeat a god even to get those truths.
Speaker: These kinds of stories are throughout all religions of all times. Here's the amazing story of the gospel. You don't have to pursue God. He pursued you. He pursued you and did everything that you had to have in order to know who he was, to know his desire for you, and to have this relationship with you.
Speaker: In God's covenant, his will is very clearly revealed. I want to bless those who choose to follow me. I want to have this relationship that says, you trust me, that you give your all to me, and in return, i give back everything you need and more so that you can live a life that is fulfilled and peaceful.
Speaker: God was not expecting the impossible when he gave these commands for us to follow. He gave them to us knowing that we did not have the potential to manage them all ourselves. That we couldn't possibly attain to all these things ourselves.
Speaker: But the problem is not that. The problem is not that we don't have the ability to obey all the commands. The problem is that we don't want to. We don't want to.
Speaker: We'd rather do it our way. we're We're very good at looking at workarounds around God's commands. <unk>re We're very good at trying to get right up to the edge of disobedience to see how close we could get without letting him down or maybe even to let him down and maybe sneak it past him so that he doesn't see it.
Speaker: There are commands in Scripture that are very, very clear. and And many times as a pastor, I'll have people come to me and say, what do you think God would do about this? and I'm like, you don't have to even guess. He's already told you.
Speaker: Lying? Wrong. Cheating? Wrong. Being dishonest? Wrong. Adultery? Wrong. Sex before marriage? Wrong. um It's like we're constantly trying to see if there isn't some missing passage that says, oh, the rest of it was just a joke.
Speaker: Do your own thing, right? But that's not going to be found. It's not there. the the story of the Scripture is I am very clear about what my expectations are, and that is that my people would live out separate lives from the rest of the world around them.
Speaker: That's what we call holiness. Be holy as I am holy. Now, the truth is that most of us, the problem we have with our relationship with God is that we don't really know God very well.
Speaker: We might profess Him and we might choose to follow Him, but we we just don't really know Him very well. And so when it comes to an opportunity to talk about Him with others, we kind of get shy, we get bashful, we get uncertain or ashamed.
Speaker: Think about this. When you fell in love with your husband or your wife, did you have any problem talking about them? In fact, people probably say, you shut up talking about that girl?
Speaker: You've known each other 36 hours, and that's all we've heard for the last 36 hours is this girl that you've met. Or your children. We never have a problem talking about our children, right? We remember every trophy, every award, every ribbon, every certificate, every A they got in school, and that's when they're 35 years old. We're still talking about it.
Speaker: And people are going, okay, I get it. I have kids too, right? But you bring up the subject of God and instantly many of us, our mouths clam up. And our our palms get sweaty.
Speaker: And we're so unsure and uncertain. And it's because we don't we don't take in this word the way God tells us to. We don't make it a part of who we are. Moses here says that this word is in you. This command is in your mouth. It's in your heart. He was talking about the fact that it's been internalized and it should guide their actions.
Speaker: You see, when you hit rough spots in your journey, the natural thing that should come out of you is the scripture that's been put in you. Your relationship with God should come squirting out all over.
Speaker: Right? i mean, if you squeezed an orange, would you expect lemon juice? So when humans get squeezed as Christians, shouldn't we squeeze a little bit of Jesus back out of the world?
Speaker: But I can tell you from interactions with many people, including the guy in the mirror, that many times that's not the case. What happens to us? Look at Psalm 119. I skipped this in 8 o'clock service.
Speaker: You're going to get your money's worth. Verse 11, I have treasured your word in my heart. Why? So I may not sin against you. Later in Romans chapter 7, Paul's going to write about this very thing. And he talks about this.
Speaker: This is one of my favorite passages in Scripture because I relate to it so well. The very thing I want to do, that's what I don't do. And the very thing I don't want to do, that's exactly the thing I do. Anybody relate to that?
Speaker: You know the best weapon against that kind of behavior? Treasuring the word in your heart. Treasuring the Word your heart. Look at the rest of the passage here. i have How I love your instruction is my meditation all day long. This is Psalm 119, 97.
Speaker: I love your instruction. Can I ask you just to be honest with yourself for a second? How many of you delight in God's Word? How many of you enjoy getting into the Scriptures?
Speaker: Because if you have time to doom scroll all day long in your phone, you've got time to get into the Word. You've got time to be before God and let that thing. And when the when the scriptures talk about meditation, how many cow farmers I got in here?
Speaker: Any? I thought I was in Chapel Hill. Holy it cow. I had a cow farmer in the first service. He confirmed this. There you go. Ricky, thank you. When cows chew, they ruminate.
Speaker: You probably learned that in your science class. What does that mean? That means they chew it. Spit it out, chew it up some more, spit it out, chew it up some more, and do it again. Why? They're getting every ounce of nutrition that comes out of that blade of grass.
Speaker: And as Christians, we should be able to do the same thing with the Word of God. The Bible says it's living and active. In other words, there's never a place when you're going to go to it that it's dead. If you don't get something out of the Word, from putting the Word into your heart, give it time. Let it soak.
Speaker: Meditate on it.
Speaker: And it will change your life. It will change your behavior. it'll change the way you think. Change the way you look at life. Later Paul would reference this in Romans 10.8 when he was speaking about the kind of righteousness we're supposed to have. The righteousness that comes from faith.
Speaker: And he would reference this very thing saying that this word is in you and it's near you. And because it is, it changes you and how you act. The next section of this covenant reminder was Moses talking about this call to choose life or death.
Speaker: Life or death. You see, Moses presents a choice to Israel. Life and blessing that will come through obedience versus death and destruction that will come through disobedience.
Speaker: And what Moses is doing is he's putting a clear presentation of the consequences that are out there. Pretty simple. Choices a or B. Yes or no.
Speaker: Life or death. Peace or adversity. Right?
Speaker: And we need to be reminded that the choices are no different today. They're that simple. You either choose to follow God or not. And to not choose is to choose.
Speaker: To not choose is to choose because it's an active, intentional seeking out of a relationship that happens every single day. You cannot, I don't care if you're a deacon, an elder, a member of the staff, I don't care if you've been a Christian for 70 years of your life, you cannot run from the responsibility you have to make a choice to follow God.
Speaker: And it's not a once and it's over kind of thing. You see, when you enter into a relationship with God, what you're saying is, now for the rest of my life, I'm going to seek you daily in the choices that I make.
Speaker: And when life gets tough, I'm going to choose you. When I'm faced with an ethical dilemma, I'm going to choose you. When I'm given a choice to compromise on my values, I'm going to choose you.
Speaker: When I'm given the option of the wide way that leads to destruction as Jesus described it versus the narrow way that leads to life, I'm going to choose you. And it happens on purpose by intentional behavior.
Speaker: And to not choose is to choose.
Speaker: So what does it look like to choose life through love and obedience? and before i before I talk about that, let me just say something else too. You can't compartmentalize your life. Guys have a real bad tendency to do that with our thinking, but you can't do that with your life. You can't say, God has my Sunday, my Wednesday, my Thursday, my Saturday afternoons, but Friday night and Tuesdays, those are mine.
Speaker: That's me and the boys, right?
Speaker: Or how about this? God's got every bit of my life except for my entertainment. I mean, it's really hard in this world to find good entertainment that's clean, so we'll just we'll just choose not to worry about that with God.
Speaker: How about exposing ourselves to people who are bad influences for us? The scripture says bad company corrupts good character. God, you've got all of me except for my friendships.
Speaker: I think I can handle those by myself. It just doesn't work that way. So what does it look like to choose life through love and obedience? Verse 16, it says, For I am commanding you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, statutes, and ordinances, so that you may live and multiply.
Speaker: Loving the Lord, walking in his ways, and keeping his commands are the way to lead to the promised land that comes through salvation and a relationship with God. Let's look out elsewhere in Scripture. Psalm chapter 1.
Speaker: Look at this. It says, how happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked? That's the ancient translation of the Hebrew. The modern translation says, how happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of social media?
Speaker: Or stand in the pathway of sinners or sit in the company of mockers. How often do you allow yourself to be exposed over and over and over again to choices and influences that are going to cause you to choose wrongly or to not choose at all?
Speaker: Because it happens to us all the time as believers.
Speaker: You know, one of the phenomenons that, is that right, phenomenons? Phenomena. phenomena The phenomena of of being a student pastor is that you get to take um trips with students a lot. Retreats, things like that.
Speaker: And one of the things that always amazed me is that kids would come back from these retreats and man, they would be like St. Paul. hey Man, they would be the most but beautiful, blessed child. Everything they did, they ah even had a little aura about them. You know, just like they'd suddenly and become saints of the faith.
Speaker: And by Tuesday, hell had entered back into their lives. And you're going, what in the world happened? And as you would watch that, what you would see is a reality that happens to all of us.
Speaker: A retreat is an opportunity to pull yourself away from the world and the influence of the world. And so when you pull yourself away, just like men did on a retreat recently here at our church, when you pull yourself away, it's easy to follow Jesus. Why?
Speaker: Because you're in the company of a lot of other people who are doing it and you've removed the influences that are pulling you the other direction.
Speaker: So imagine what happens the other 51 weekends of the year when you're exposing yourself to bad entertainment, bad friendships, bad choices, bad compromises over and over and over again.
Speaker: What you are doing is you're putting yourself on a slope that heads down away from Jesus.
Speaker: How happy is the one who doesn't make those choices? It's like God is saying, listen, if you want to follow me, then cut free from all those things that are going to cause your mind to think that direction.
Speaker: Remove those influences so do you don't think that way. Get away from those friendships that bring you down and enter into friendships that are going to encourage you towards Christ. Let's keep reading. Instead, his delight, there's that word again, his delight, his delight is in the Lord's instruction and he meditates, there's that word again, on it day and night. You would think these might be important things, right?
Speaker: If God reports repeats things in Scripture, it's usually because something's important, right? Verse 3. He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears its fruit in season and its leaf does not wither.
Speaker: Whatever he does prospers. If you've ever kayaked down the Duck River over here at the state park, after you go under the main bridge here um the Lewisburg Highway, on the right you start to look.
Speaker: There are these trees along the bank that have these long, huge roots that intermingle with each other. And it's pretty impressive because there's really not that much dirt around them. They're they're very exposed because of the wear of the the erosion of the water, the river.
Speaker: But they're able to stand there because they are so deeply rooted and intertwined with one another that they don't worry about the storms or the winds or even the floods like we had this past weekend. They are able to stand and to grow and to be fruitful because they have put their roots into something that holds them up.
Speaker: Believer today, if you want to be strong in your faith, you better root yourself in the word of God. You better let those roots go down deep so that when life does come and the storms do come, he doesn't worry about it because his fruit in season and out of season will do what it's supposed to do, will produce like it's supposed to because he's drawing from the source that gives him the ability to do that.
Speaker: I mean, you'd find it really strange if you got in a kayak, you went under that bridge, you looked over there on the right, and the roots were going up this way, right? How long do you think that tree's going to last?
Speaker: Not very long.
Speaker: Or if those roots were this long, and they didn't dig into the soil where the nutrients came from. You can't pop in and out of church on a Sunday morning one side of every four weeks or pick up the word once every seven days and think that your roots are ever going to get very deep into what God needs you to have in order to grow as a believer.
Speaker: Verse 4. The wicked are not like this. Instead, they are like chaff that the wind blows away. Keep going. Verse 5. Therefore, the wicked will not stand up in the judgment nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
Speaker: You ever see anybody have a meltdown? Don't point at your spouse. This is not included. The reason people have meltdowns is because when storms come, they have nothing to protect them against what's coming.
Speaker: Anxiety comes, there's no peace to be found.
Speaker: Moral struggles, moral dilemmas, there's no there's no grounding for them to lean on. But those who have allowed those roots to go down deep into the word, they will withstand those tests and they will produce fruit in season and out of season.
Speaker: Not so the wicked. They're going to be blown away just like the chaff.
Speaker: If Israel's heart was going to turn away to worship other gods, which it ah ultimately would do, in fact it had already done numerous times, the result was going to be destruction and exile. You cannot expect that your heart can turn towards anything else but God and get any different result today.
Speaker: What do we set up as gods? None of us have a temple in our backyard. None of us have little icons that we set up. Maybe we do. They're in our den. They're called TVs.
Speaker: Maybe you're icons at work. maybe Maybe it's your career that you're worshiping.
Speaker: Maybe it's your popularity. Maybe your identity in Christ and your strength and confidence in Christ goes up and down with the number of likes on your last post on your social media.
Speaker: Maybe all it takes is for one friend to say something negative to you and suddenly your whole self-confidence goes out the window because it was based on something besides what God says you are instead of
Speaker: listening to the world and what his opinions are.
Speaker: Again, God knew that we could not perfectly submit to this law. That's why he gave us sacrifice Why the whole sacrificial system was set up. Why? Because it's not adherence to the law that makes people right with God.
Speaker: It is sacrifice that makes people right to God. In the Old Testament, it was the sacrifice of animals that bought them time. The New Testament is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the ultimate sacrifice that gives us the ability to have forgiveness.
Speaker: Last thing that and Moses talks about is he calls heaven and earth as a witness to this choice. This call to choose life. You see, Moses calls heaven and earth as witnesses because it was the biggest thing he could think of.
Speaker: He was saying, this is so important. I'm not just going to call Joshua as a witness. I'm not just going to call a couple of elders as a witness. I'm going to call all of heaven and earth as a witness because he says, if you don't get this right, nothing else matters.
Speaker: Nothing else matters. You can go into the promised land. You can conquer the whole promised land. You can set up a kingdom. You can do all those things. But if you ever come to a point where you choose to let something else besides the holy God be the representative of your nation, be the leader of your nation, be the one who guides this nation, if you ever choose anything else, it will all be worthless. 400 years later, there is no Israel.
Speaker: It's gone. Wiped out by poor choices, by idolatry, by adultery, by compromise, by wickedness, by evil. I mean, guys, by the time you get into the book of Judges, you're going to read about evil that will just blow your mind.
Speaker: It's a dark, dark book. Why? Because in that day, everyone did as they saw fit.
Speaker: But Moses calls them and says, choose life not just for you, but so you and your descendants may live. Look at verse 19. You see, the choices you make today aren't just about you. They're about your children and your grandchildren.
Speaker: Choices you make today will have an impact on them. Now, make no mistake, your kids will stand before Jesus Christ themselves. Your children will have to answer for their choices, their behavior themselves. But you have an impact on the men and women that they are because of the choices you make.
Speaker: What are your kids seeing in you?
Speaker: inevitably as I have worked with kids over the years, both as a student pastor and as a teacher and now volunteering as a coach a lot, you'll always run into one or two or three kids in the group of people you're working with who have those parents who think they do nothing wrong ever.
Speaker: How many educators I got who can say amen, right? They're the ones that show up at the classroom and go, how did you dare give my child a seat? My child never does that bad. There's got be something wrong with you.
Speaker: right That voice, exactly. Exactly. what the The one year that I taught in a private school, I actually had a parent show up at a parent-teacher meeting.
Speaker: Wanted to beat me up because his son didn't get the A in my history class. No lie, i have to tell you that story sometime. It's funny now. It wasn't that night when he's standing there bowing up at me, getting ready to hit me.
Speaker: I'm like, seriously? Seriously? Think about this. When you teach your children or you tell other people your children don't do anything wrong, you're telling them that God's a liar.
Speaker: See, that's a subtle lesson, but if your kids are paying attention, and by the way, your kids are always paying attention, if they hear you tell somebody else, oh, my child doesn't do anything wrong, what are you teaching them?
Speaker: Or how about when some kind of adversity or or tragedy comes into your family? If the first thing you do is begin to complain and whine about the tough situation of your life, instead of getting on your knees and beginning to pray to God about the situation going through, what are you teaching your kids?
Speaker: I trust God until I really need Him, and then I'll find some other route. You see, the messages you choose to send are affected by the choices you make and how you act, what you say.
Speaker: the way you treat other people. Every single day, every single moment, choices that you have to make about how you're going to respond to God's call on your life.
Speaker: To choose life means very simply to love God, to obey His commands. Let me close very quickly. Four things. Four things that want you to take away. This is the modern application for you from what we just talked about with Moses. Number one, God's commands are accessible. I'm going to argue that they are more accessible today in this generation than any other previous generation.
Speaker: You have Bibles. You have study Bibles. You have parallel Bibles. You have Bibles for firemen and military and sports. You have Bibles for hunters. You have Bibles for people who read backwards.
Speaker: yeah I mean, it seems like they're everywhere in every shape, form, and fashion. When we started the reading plan this year, I had several of you come up to me and say, i'm I'm excited about this, but I'm just not a great reader.
Speaker: Well, great. You live in an age where there are people who will read the Bible to you off of your phone. You don't even have to read it yourself. You don't even have to find time at home to do it. You can do it on your drive to Franklin for work, on your way to the ball field with your kids.
Speaker: It's everywhere. If you don't understand it, good news. Again, on your phone, there's an app that explains to you what you just read from a very good, very solid evangelical place. If you don't know what that is, come see me. I'll be happy to share it with you. there you're If you aren't getting the Bible, it's because you're running from it.
Speaker: It's everywhere around you. So the commands are accessible and they aren't hard. They aren't difficult.
Speaker: Trying to program your TV at home, that's difficult.
Speaker: Trying to program your life, not so much. God's been pretty clear about it.
Speaker: Secondly, the power of the choice. Every single person in this room, young and old, those yet to be born, those approaching retirement, doesn't make any difference with your stage of life.
Speaker: The choice is yours. The choice is yours what you're going to do with what God has given you in His Word. The choice is yours and how you're going to live that out around people who are in your sphere of influence.
Speaker: These choices are not just spiritual. They're also moral. They're also ah practical in how you live out your life day to day. What are you going to do with your money? How are you going to save your money? are you going to spend your money?
Speaker: What are we going to do with our free time? How are we going to use entertainment in our family and not use it in our family? All of those are choices that you have the opportunity to make. What you don't have the opportunity to do is choose to be a victim.
Speaker: You don't have the opportunity to choose to be a victim.
Speaker: I love you. love every single one of you with all my heart. I can look you in the face and say this, so I'm going to lovingly say this to you. We live in a victim age. We all want to blame our past.
Speaker: We want to take credit for all the good stuff that happens in our life, but we want to blame the past for everything that happens to us. I can't stop eating chocolate. It's because my mom brought chocolate home all the time.
Speaker: I've tried that one before. doesn't work. My wife gives no grace for that.
Speaker: I can't get enough exercise. There's no time for it. No, but you can sit for an hour on your phone. Scroll. Scroll. You can sit and watch some stupid, trashy movie on TV for two hours on Friday night, but you can't find time.
Speaker: We are victims.
Speaker: We are victims. And I see nowhere in Scripture where God allows that. Because you can sit here and tell me all about your bad life. Did your parents ever put you in a basket and send you down the river?
Speaker: if you If they did, I want to hear about it. Okay? Okay? Did your brothers ever sell you into slavery in a foreign country?
Speaker: No? How about this one? Did you ever go visit to a town where you were going to try to help some people out and they in turn looked at you and stoned you thinking you were dead and left you on the side of the road? No?
Speaker: Well, then none of you have an excuse. None of us have an excuse. we We are who we choose to be. We are who we choose to be. And guys, can you just hear this from me? Please, please, please hear this.
Speaker: The reason that being a victim is so wrong and bad is because it says that my God can't overcome what I've been through. And that's a lie that the world wants you to hear. the though The world wants you to just fall down and be the product of whatever's going on in your environment.
Speaker: God says you don't have to be the product of your past. I'm in the business of taking beauty and ah making beauty from ashes.
Speaker: So unless you've ever been nailed to a cross, don't talk to me about your problems. Talk to me about your promises, the ones that God has given you. Thirdly, choosing life means loving God.
Speaker: Choosing life very simply means loving God. 1 John 5, verse 3-4. Let me just read this. It's not going to be on the screen because I just put this in here this morning. This is John, the disciple who Jesus loved. That's the way he loved to describe himself. He says this, For this is what love for God is.
Speaker: That's a simple, I mean, it's simple, right? You know what's coming next. This is how I know I love God. This is what love for God is, to keep His commands.
Speaker: There's a period there, by the way. There's nothing else coming after that. Want to love know how you love God? You keep His commands. Actually, it's not true that there's not something else after it. There is one more sentence.
Speaker: His commands are not a burden.
Speaker: Lastly, the impact you're going to have on future generations. The choices that we make don't just affect us.
Speaker: One of the reasons I love working with students is because I have the opportunity to help students overcome their past. I have the opportunity to help some kids who come up from some really bad situations that maybe have an opportunity to realize that they don't have to let their past define them.
Speaker: I am currently helping to coach middle school baseball with ah Keith Harbour and Chad Harden and and Josh. And were man we're having a great time. Middle school kids are brain dead.
Speaker: um I spend much of my afternoons at baseball practice trying to interpret what it is that they are talking about with each other. And quite frankly, they say some things that I'm going, are you sure you wanted that to come out of your mouth?
Speaker: But I wouldn't trade it for the world.
Speaker: In my mind, if the hours I spend on that field causes one man to turn out to be more like Jesus, it's been worth it for me. I don't care if they ever hit a home run. I don't care if they ever have a low ERA or a high batting average.
Speaker: But if they come closer to the image of Jesus because of the time I've spent with them, then I've been successful.
Speaker: And every single one y'all have that same potential. It could be teaching in a class here. It could be doing our Good News Club that we do down the street at the at the intermediate school.
Speaker: It could be volunteering for Vacation Bible School this summer where we have unknown numbers of kids who are not churched who come for one week to hear about Jesus. It could be just being a mentor to a kid down the street you know who doesn't have very good situation in his house.
Speaker: But here's the here's the encouraging news of the day. Right now, what we're reading, what we're hearing, is that this generation of young people, age 18 to 25-ish, that this generation is more hungry for truth than any generation in the last two to three decades.
Speaker: Because they've looked at all the lunacy that's going on in our world for the last few years and said, this can't be all there is. And so they are desperately seeking truth. They're not calling it Jesus now, but they're seeking truth.
Speaker: The question is, is the church going be prepared to answer those questions for them? Are we going to be there to offer hope? Are we going to be there to point them in the right direction and say, man, this book, this book is not just some fable.
Speaker: It's not just some mythological logical thing that's been thrown together. It is truth that changes your life. You need it. You've got to have it. You've got to put it in your life. But you've being ashamed of it.
Speaker: I'm fixing to make a statement of the obvious. I could stay here and preach about this all day long. But there comes a point where you have to choose.
Speaker: What will you do? What will you do in the next few minutes with what you've heard? What will you do this week to be different? You know the definition of insanity.
Speaker: Keep doing the same thing the same way. Expect different results. what What's one habit you can pick up this week that's going to help you be a better chooser this week? I would suggest meditating on God's Word.
Speaker: I would suggest finding a company of friends who are going to encourage you towards Jesus and not drag you away from Him. I would encourage a more vibrant prayer life.
Speaker: But I would encourage you to know this.
Speaker: It's your choice.
Speaker: Choose wisely. Let me pray for you.
Speaker: Father, first of all, I think I have to ask for forgiveness for the fact that we have to be reminded so often of your goodness to us.
Speaker: Man, you let one bad thing happen to us and we're quick to complain. quick to gripe, quick to list all of our problems.
Speaker: But I woke up in a house this morning that was dry where there was food to eat and clothes to wear. I woke up next to my best friend for 17 years. I woke up knowing that my children and grandchildren had been kept safe through the night.
Speaker: I woke up knowing I was going to get to come worship with the people I love so desperately and dearly and that nobody would be crashing in the door putting me to death for doing it today. Man, I've got so many things to be thankful for.
Speaker: So part of my ability to choose is, am I going to choose to be grateful? Am I going to choose to be thankful? am I going to choose to focus on the negative things that this world throws at me?
Speaker: I've got to decide. just like everybody else in this room, am I going to choose to follow you in every single moment, every single thought, every single action? Am I going to choose to produce the fruit that you've asked me to produce?
Speaker: Or am I going to choose my way?
Speaker: and I've seen how my way comes out. I'm not real impressed by it. It doesn't give me peace. It doesn't give me confidence. It doesn't give me hope. It doesn't give me fulfillment.
Speaker: Most of all, it doesn't give me you. And you is what I need. You is what we need.
Speaker: Because you are only hope.
Speaker: It's Jesus' name I pray. man
