This is a recording of my message on Deuteronomy for our Old Testament Survey series to the ABF Junior High Group.
Below is my outline for those who would like to follow along.
INTRO:
Think back to when you were a little kid.
The first time you were crossing the street with your parents
They held your hand and taught you to “look both ways before you cross the street”
As a little kid did you listen to them? Did you obey them? Why? Love
When you love someone you will listen and respond to them and when you listen and respond you show them you love them. This is true of any relationship but especially between parents and kids and husbands and wives.
As a kid assuming you listened and loved your parents did that decision protect your life or endanger your life?
HUB:
Listen & Love = Life
Listening and responding to the loving words of someone you love will lead to life.
Ignoring or hearing and not responding will lead to death
This is true for us and it was true in Deuteronomy
SPOKE: Listen & Love The Lord Alone (BibleProject)
Watch for what they say is at the core of the Deuteronomy Scroll?
Watch: Book of Deuteronomy Summary: A Complete Animated Overview
A call to covenant faithfulness
What does that look like? Listening to and loving the Lord leading to life
SPOKE: Listen & Love
Explanation/Exhortation/Exaltation:
Deut 4:1-8
Deuteronomy 6:4-5
Shema
The Shema - were gonna focus on that for a week in our reading.
But our love for God and his laws are to be contagious and infectious; infectious to all of who we are. We don’t just love God with our heart and shut off our mind. We love God with our emotions: who we are deep down, and our strength or our effort. (Jesus later adds our intellect or mind)
Good analogy is talking about music artists:
Who is your favorite music artist? How can you prove that they are your favorite? You listen to them? Why do you listen to them? Cause you love them? Most likely not just privately in head phones but in the car, with your friends, etc
Parents pass that on to their kids and share their favorite artists
Stella Six Flags Taylor Swift - not just passive listening but responsive listening, singing along, memorizing the lyrics it happens naturally with things you love.
God wants his words to be our favorite music to our ears. That’s why the Psalms say “how I love your law”
Someone that loves God should love to read the scriptures. They should find life, joy, and beauty in them even if it is hard to read and understand. And Joshua gives us a good example of that next week.
QUESTIONS?
God doesn’t just say listening and loving will just be good because he says so. He actually says it will make their life better. Living by His wisdom will raise the bar on morality, justice, and life.
SPOKE: Life or Death
Explanation/Exhortation/Exaltation:
Deuteronomy 28:64-66
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
The Choice
And then repeats those same formulas of cursing for disobedience
If you disobey you shall die? What does that sound like? The Garden!
This section reminds me of the rules to a game.
In basketball, can you pick up the ball and carry it? I mean yeah you can. You’ll just get the ball turned over everytime. They won’t physically stop you from doing that, you can do what you want or you can obey the rules and your life will be easier and things will work out better. Does not guarantee you win. And that’s not what God is saying, he isn’t saying your life will be perfect if you follow him. But he is saying it will be richer, fuller, and more whole.
Moses is putting the options on the table
Conclusion:
Gospel of Grace
The choice is before them. And the choice is before us. See the fun thing about Deuteronomy is that Moses throughout the book, blurs who he is talking to. Between the people that died in the wilderness, their kids, or people in the future. And because of that we can see ourselves in Deuteronomy. We have the same choice. And we have the invitation to read the laws and find the wisdom of God in it.
Deuteronomy 5:17 repeats the 10 Commandments (Words) from exodus and says “You shall not murder”. Jesus grew up memorizing, meditating, listening to and loving God’s law. And this is what he said after 30 years of that
Matthew 5:21-22
Jesus read don’t murder and saw underneath that the deeper intent and wisdom of God.
So we have the invitation to read the law and meditate on it and say wait guys, does this law upon meditation mean this?
Deuteronomy therefore has wisdom and truth to speak to our lives.
But more importantly it points us to our savior.
When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he points us to the Shema (found in deuteronomy) and loving neighbor as the most important law. He looked back to Deuteronomy
Jesus through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension gives us a new heart that Deuteronomy said we needed and his return will enable us to live with those new hearts.
Moses wrote the law on stone, Jesus writes it on our hearts. Through the Spirit we are told he will remind us of the new covenant.
And Jesus is the greater prophet than Moses that the end of the book says we need.
Moses rebelled and did not enter the promised land. Moses mediated God’s words imperfectly.
Jesus was faithful in all things and he promises to lead us to the promised land and he perfectly mediated God’s words to us (we have it written it in the gospel) and he gives us his very own spirit so that we can hear directly from God himself.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST: In the blessings and curses that Moses lays out at the end of Deuteronomy, he says, “if you do not listen and love this will happen”: death, exile, isolation. And as we look forward to Jesus we see one who although He did listen and love his whole life takes the curses on himself. He dies, he is exiled outside of the city, and he is alone. Why? So anyone who puts their trust in him and follows him can experience the blessings he earned. We can have life eternal that begins now, he we have the hope of the promised land, and we have fellowship with God now! (Gal 3)
That is how Deuteronomy points us to Jesus.
QUESTIONS?
Let’s pray!
Small group Questions:
High and Low of the Week?
What stuck out from the message & video? (Respond to, Affirm, and Develop Observations)
Do people that are listening know what you love (restaurants, music, guys/girls)? Do those people know you love Jesus?
What is an example from your life recently that shows the choice between listening to God or listening to yourself?
What points to Jesus in Deuteronomy?
Prayer Requests?
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