Deuteronomy

Jesus said, “Where your treasure is there will your heart be also.” (Matthew 6:21) We live in a world that invites us to fall in love with something new every day. New products, new holidays, new culinary sensations, and new entertainments cry out for our attention. Yet, in the midst of these voices, God speaks to us and invites us to love His law. He does not scream His invitation; he simply sets before us the richness of His law and invites us to hear, learn and grow to cherish the words of life and truth His people have for thousands of year.

Deuteronomy is quoted more than eighty times in the New Testament. Only Genesis, Isaiah and the Psalms are quoted more often. It is a very influential and powerful book that turns our heart to the law of God. In Deuteronomy we discover that God sees His people, He knows His people, and He is committed to transform them into a nation that honors Him and reflects His righteous heart in a world that is dark and sin-filled.

In the opening two verses of Deuteronomy we get a brief geography lesson. We are told that “it takes eleven days to go from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea by the Mount Seir road.”

We have seen these verses before. They might seem to be a little random but they are here for a specific reason. The writer wants every reader to remember that the trip from Mount Sinai up to the edge of the Promised Land, normally takes only eleven days. We are talking about a week and a half travel time. The writer is subtly setting the context: A whole generation of human beings wasted their lives in the desert and lost the opportunity to enter God’s Promised Land because of their stubborn refusal to trust God and do what He said. The writer is also saying to all future readers, including us, “Don’t’ make the same mistake. Don’t blow forty years of your life on an eleven day lesson.”

Forty years have now gone by and Moses is at the end of his life. He know he is going to die and the people know it. This is a poignant moment in their history. What we read in Deuteronomy are the last words Moses will say to this group of people whom he has led, help to liberate, struggled with, wrestled with, yelled at, and loved for forty years.

Moses does not do what most people do at retirement events. He does not reminisce about his career or all he has accomplished in his life. Rather, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he gives one more appeal to the people of Israel. He calls them to follow God’s plan, God’s law for their lives.

These are his words as recorded in Deuteronomy 4:1-4: “Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you. 2 Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you.

Deuteronomy is a desperate plea for people to remember and follow God’s law. The name Deuteronomy comes from two Greek words: deuteros: meaning “second” and nomos: meaning law. In other words this book is a second telling or second giving of the law. God knows we all need reminders, and Moses brings the people of God back to the truth they have already heard but need to hear again.

The law was their prized possession. Look at verse 5.

5 See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. 6 Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." 7 What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him? 8 And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?” Deut. 4:5-8

The law is what will set us apart Moses is saying.

9 Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.

An then in Chapter 6 there is this real familiar passage:

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. [a] 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9

God’s intent is very clear. Get this law into your head and heart. Don’t forget it. Think about it all the time. He want us to remember His law not the way a high school student crams for a test but way down deep in our hearts so that nothing can shake it loose.

Do whatever it takes. Tie a string around you finger. Write it on the back of your hand. Put a post it note on the bathroom mirror or the refrigerator or anywhere else you might see it. Set an alarm on your hand held computer and have an alarm pop up with a Scripture for you to meditate on.

Here’s is what the Bible says about the law in the Old Testament:

“The ordinances of the Lord are more precious than gold, than much fine gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb. Psalm 19:10

“Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.” Psalm 119:97

“Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart.” Psalm 119:111

Why did this people of Israel love the law with all their hearts? They spend vast amounts of time studying it, speaking of it often, committing it to memory, and letting it shape their lives. Take a moment for reflection and think about what thinks you love that much.

Where do I invest my time?
What do I talk about?
What fill my mind?
What shapes my life and actions?

We are going to look at the law through the lens of three different aspects of the law and how God intended it to shape His people.

1. Laws Regarding Giving and Generosity

Take out a pen and a piece of paper. What was the mandate amount to be given by an Israelite each year from their income? Turn to Deuteronomy 14:22.

Leviticus 27:30 says, “A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil, fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord, it is holy to the Lord.”

22 Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. 23 Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the LORD your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the LORD your God always.” Deut. 14:22

So what is the amount that they were required to give? But it doesn’t stop there. God said there is also what will be called a Sabbath Year. Out of concern for the earth that God had made, God says, “Every seventh year, people are not to plant anything. No sowing, no reaping, let the land rest.”

That meant they would give up their income and produce a seventh of their time. Deut. 15:1 taught the people to cancel debts on the Sabbath year. The people were to forget debts and celebrate God’s goodness and provision. This represents about 14% of their income because it meant for this full year they would have no income!

“1 At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. 2 This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel the loan he has made to his fellow Israelite. He shall not require payment from his fellow Israelite or brother, because the Lord’s time for canceling debts has been proclaimed.” Deut. 15:1-2

This was to happen on the Sabbath year. Pretty cool deal. Do you think that would ever happen today? Can you imagine Visa calling you up and saying, “Hey good news, it’s the Sabbath year. Your debt is cancelled.” Can you imagine your mortgage lender calling you on this year?

Because people try to get legalistic about this stuff God puts in a very clear warning that everyone is to be included, even the poor. Look at 15:7, “ 7 If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. 8 Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs. 9 Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: "The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near," so that you do not show ill will toward your needy brother and give him nothing. He may then appeal to the LORD against you, and you will be found guilty of sin. 10 Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.”

These are great verses and lessons for us. The Sabbath Year would cost about 14% of their income. But that’s not all.

For a faithful Israelite, the giving did not stop there. Leviticus 25:8-12 teaches us that every forty nine years God declared a year of Jubilee. Like the Sabbath it was a time when the earth rested and there was no planting or harvesting. It was also a time when debts were cancelled and people were set free from bondage.

To prevent chronic poverty, God said in effect, “”Every fifty years, all the land is to go back to it’s original owner.” This was a radical redistribution of wealth, where everyone got back the family inheritance that had been established in the time of Joshua. There were two Jubilee years every century so that would represent another 2%.

It would seem that Israelites who cave their tithes, observed the Sabbath years, and also celebrated the year of Jubilee, would be doing enough. We are already up to 26 % of their income. But God was calling them to radical and sacrificial generosity. Look at Deuteronomy 24:19-22:

“19 When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 20 When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. 21 When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. 22 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this.”

God it telling his people to be a little sloppy when they farm. The could have gone over their fields twice and beat the olive tress a little harder to be sure everything fell to the ground, and thus they could have made a bigger profit at the market and gotten a better return on their investment. But God called them to be sloppy and always leave some in the fields.

Why? Because something inside the human heart tends to say, “I’ve got to wring every ounce of profit out of this I can. I’ve got to make every dime I can grab.” To counteract this selfish tendency God instituted gleaning laws.

What is the second most favorite word of children learning to talk after “no?” The word is “mine.”

Video: Let me give you an example of how we are sometimes.

By nature we are selfish and seek our own good. God is committed to help us learn the joy of generosity. He wants us to learn that giving and sharing are part of His plan for our maturity. He wanted to root that out of his people. He wants them to learn how to share. We would estimate that this would be about 4%.

This is just amazing to me as I look at this. The goal of the Old Testament is never to make us mechanical in our responses. We read in Deut. 15:7-8 that we should be openhanded. Imagine a community where everyone was openhanded and openhearted toward genuine need. Think about what a community would be like if they made their resources available to God, to the people of God, and to those in need.

You may not know this but I have a feeling that you do. All across this country at church conferences there is a sad reality that restaurant staff member have learned to face. It is simply this: Church leaders and evangelical church members are not always famous for being generous tippers. They are more often than not notorious for being stingier than people who don’t even know God. When a leadership conference takes a lunch break and people flood into local restaurants (often with name tags still on) many members of the wait staff brace themselves for the worst.

Followers of Christ, of all people in the world should live with an openhanded spirit of giving.

Talk about cards and what they are for.

Talk about the food pantry.

Capital Campaign: Many have given but here is where we are. We are going to pay cash for the work that needs to be done. If we would have moved it would have taken millions of dollars. To stay here take around $500.000 and so far we have raised about $154.000.

I am going to be honest with you. We need to take the next step and pave our parking lots and we need to do it before fall. That means we need an additional $140,000. in the next few weeks. This is the real deal here. We can only do this if all of us give something.

In his book Dedication and Leadership, Douglas Hyde tells about the radical sacrifice he has seen prior to his becoming a follower of Jesus. Hyde had been a communist during he 1930’s and 1940’s but had come to see the truth of the Christian faith. What troubled him, and what he writes about in his book, is how much communists were willing to sacrifice for their cause (which was false) and how little Christians were willing to give up for the sake of Christ.

Hyde was the leader of the communist party for over twenty years. During most of this time he worked for the British Communist Party’s daily paper the London Daily Worker. He, and many others like him, had taken radical pay cuts to leave their jobs in the marketplace and take posts in the communist party. Hyde writes:

“Some of the workers were earning one-tenth of what had been their salary when they had worked for the “capitalist” press. There were times when, small as our salaries were, these could not be paid at all.

Even when the paper became slightly more prosperous and the staff were technically given the union rate for the job, the sacrifices still continued. We got our packets, opened them and immediately gave eight-fourteenths of the their contents to the Party and the paper – before it burned our fingers. Sine everyone did this, it became something of a meaningless ritual after a while and so we did not bother to receive the cash, it just went direct to the cause. And so it continues to this day.”

When Hyde came to accept Jesus as the leader of his life, he was staggered by the meager expectations of the church when it came to his finances. He had seen people take a 90-percent pay cut to work for the communist cause. Then these same people (including him for twenty years), who had already given so much, gave over 50 percent of every paycheck to the cause. Now he heard that the church was calling people to give 10 percent to the cause of Christ. He was shocked by the small amount, and even more shocked that so few people responded to this call Hyde also wrote,

“The Communist’s appeal to idealism is direct and audacious. They say if you make mean little demands upon people, you will get a mean little response which is all you deserve, but if you make big demands on them, you will get an historic response.”

Hyde writes these things not to praise the Communist Party but to challenge those who follow Christ. If people can follow a misguided cause with such reckless abandon, why can’t Christ’s followers learn to sacrifice with a joy-filled surrender? Of all people, it is Christians who should be the most generous and willing to sacrifice, because our Savior has sacrificed everything for us.

We tend to live our lives down here on this earth and get so focused on accumulating stuff and some day we will count it all as loss. It will mean nothing. What you have invested in God’s kingdom will be all you will be concerned about.

C. H. Spurgeon preached once a each year for his orphans. At that great meeting many would come to hear the famous preacher, and an offering would be received for the orphanage. After one of these meetings he was leaving the sanctuary when one of those "super spiritual," narrow-minded, nitpicking individuals accosted him with the charge, "Why, Mr. Spurgeon, I thought you preached for souls and not for money!"

Spurgeon gravely replied, “Why, Mr. So-and-So. Normally I do preach for souls and not for money. But my orphans can’t eat souls and if they did, my brother, it would take at least four the size of yours to give one of them a square meal!"

Mother Teresa visited Australia. A new recruit to the Franciscan order in Australia was assigned to be her guide and “gofer” during her stay. “Thrilled and excited at the prospect of being so close to this woman, he dreamed of how much he would learn from her and what they would talk about. But during her visit, he became frustrated. Although he was constantly near her, the friar never had the opportunity to say one word to Mother Teresa. There were always other people for her to meet. Finally, her tour was over, and she was due to fly to New Guinea. In desperation, the friar spoke to Mother Teresa. “If I pay my own fare to New Guinea, can I sit next to you on the plane so I can talk to you and learn from you?” Mother Teresa looked at him. “You have enough money to pay airfare to New Guinea?” she asked. “Oh, yes,” he replied eagerly. “Then give that money to the poor,” she said. “You’ll learn more from that than anything I can tell you.”

You know how we need to live. Like a little boy who had five loaves and two fishes one day in his lunch. Do you know how valuable that would have become? He gave it up without even a question.

This sermon and series is based on material provided by J. Ortberg and the OTC series.