Introduction: Grace be to you and peace, from God our Father, and from our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Our text is the Old Testament Lesson, from Deut. 30. We begin with prayer.
Dear fellow disciples of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ:
- So many things in life are really quite serious – involving great risk and danger, but we take them all in stride and often give little thought to what we are doing. Driving a car on the freeway is like this – think of all the people driving 75 mph each day, thinking about work, or friends, or yard work, or some hobby they are heading toward, BUT not a thought about what would happen if someone hit them, or if they had some catastrophic mechanical failure.
- School is also like this – what we do in school, what we learn, how well we succeed, can have a huge and lasting impact on our life. The work that we do is also like this – how we treat other people, what effect it has on them, whether our work is helping our company gain strength or ruining other business and growth opportunities. Even how we treat our neighbors can have serious consequences in our lives – whether or not we have friendly neighbors or complainers, whether they sue us, or sabotage our property.
- I remember as a child thinking that church was NOT a very serious matter – though surely we were supposed to be reverent and respectful around church. But what did it really matter – and I observed that it didn’t really seem to matter all that much to many people at church. It was just social, just something that people “did,” to feel a little better, or to have some purpose or something. But hopefully most of us recognize that church is consequential – more so than anything else we do, in that the consequences are not only temporal, affecting important things in this life, but also eternal, determining who we ultimately are for all of eternity.
- Moses – preaching a sermon to the children of Israel – makes this abundantly clear in our text, that:
I. Christianity Is A Serious Matter – A Matter Of Life And Death
Text: “See I set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in His ways, and by keeping His statutes and His rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.”
A. God’s Principle “Command” Is That We Repent Of Our Sin And Hold On To Jesus By Faith – And This IS Life, Eternal Life
Mark 1:14,15 “Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’”
John 6:29 “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him Whom He has sent.”
John 3:36 “He that believes the Son has everlasting life; he that does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
B. To Not Repent And Unbelief IS Death, Eternal Death
Text: “But if you heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess.”
C. As This Message Comes To Human Beings – Principally At Church, And Through The Church, All Will Choose Between Life And Death, Eternal Life and Damnation
Text: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live.”
Statement: I would guess that a lot of people think of the church as being less than of the utmost importance simply because they don’t believe these warnings from God’s Word. They assume that things are not all that bad, that they are not all that bad or sinful, and that therefore God can’t really be all that serious. They think that all the warnings are just a form of “verbal coercion” that God will not really implement. I assure you that this is a very foolish mistake!
Do you think that God was not serious when Christ died on the cross, that this was just “acting” on God’s part? And what does it mean in a relationship when God’s Word is discounted in this manner, like He isn’t even truthful and serious?
Application: So our text also calls each of us to think seriously about God, about His Word, and about His church! What will you “choose”? And are you aware that by choosing to think of the church flippantly, as no big deal, of no real consequence, that you are in fact choosing “death and curse”?
Transition: And if we think that this matter is really of no consequence, that will show up in our lives – how we live, our relationship with the church. And it truly is a matter of relationship with Jesus Christ, with the Heavenly Father, with God Almighty, for Moses makes clear that:
II. The States Of Life And Death Are Lived Out By Various People With Quite Disparate Fruits
A. The Dead Live In Idolatry And Immorality, Without Any Saltiness Of Good
Text: “your heart turns away [from God, devotion to Him], will not hear [God and His Word] drawn away to worship other gods and serve them.”
B. The “Living” Love God, Follow Jesus As Their Highest Loyalty, And Remain Committed To His Word
Text: “Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying His voice and holding fast to Him, for He is your life and length of days.”
Luke 14:26,27,33 “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. For whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. . . . So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be My disciple.”
Statement: We balk at this when we think of it as our “responsibility” and as “obligatory.” That is not the intent of Moses or of Jesus. The fact that we balk and rebel – against what is good – is evidence of the wretchedness of our sin. But we cannot just decide – “okay, I guess if I have to I will love God.” This is absurd – and completely contradictory of love!
So we must go back to Jesus’ “command” – and consider “repentance,” consider acknowledging and admitting that we have no innate love for God and commitment to good. Yes, we must consider just how dark our sin is, and how dire our condemnation is under God’s Law – how serious our predicament and future is without God’s gracious forgiveness and mercy.
Application: And then we must look again at Jesus – Who He is, and what He has done for us, and consider whether we will receive and live in His love for us. And if we will receive His love, we must sit down in it, and live in it, and take time to contemplate it – rather than rushing off to the next thing. For in this way only is love for God born in us, and nurtured in us, so that we do in fact “love God” and “hold fast to Him.” In this way only we come to value Him more highly than anything else – no matter the relationship, no matter the possession. Then of course we will follow Jesus and come after Him.
Conclusion: And this is what church is about – looking seriously at the reality, at the truly dark nature of our sin, at the dire consequences – and spending time exulting in the gracious love, mercy, and forgiveness of God. Then we grow to love God – and that love will be expressed in “hearing Him,” and “following Him,” and living in true and genuine love, as He teaches us!
The only other option we have – other than this “LIVING” in Christ – is DEATH. So this “choosing” is much weightier than the choices and responsibilities we have when driving, or working, or studying, or in our relationships with other people. We’re talking about our relationship with God – the almighty God, the eternal God, the only True and Living God!
This is what “church” is about – and hopefully we all understand its importance and weightiness, and also the great blessedness of “LIFE” that comes to us through the church, through fellowship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! In this way God will also fulfill His good and gracious will in us, in our lives, that we “love the LORD our God, obey His voice, and hold fast to Him” – knowing that He is our life and our length of days!
So let us also choose life – for ourselves and for our offspring! Amen.
Votum: And the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds in the true faith, which is in Christ Jesus, even unto life everlasting, Amen.