Tawa Baptist

The Prophet

Scripture: Deuteronomy 18:9-22

Video Link: https://youtu.be/auVnpWoDedM

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Choose a future with hope
  • Listen to God’s prophet
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

What would you give to know the future?

If you knew exactly when an earthquake or fire was going to destroy your property, you would get insurance cover for that period, but you wouldn’t bother getting cover for the rest of the time.

Likewise, if you knew someone was going to be involved in a car accident tomorrow, you would hide their keys and keep them home for a day. 

What would you give to know the future?

Today we continue our series in Deuteronomy, focusing on chapter 18. In this passage Moses deals with the question of how God’s people are to manage themselves in the face of an unknown future. From Deuteronomy 18, verses 9-22 we read… 

9 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. 10 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, 11 or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord; because of these same detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. 13 You must remain completely loyal to the Lord your God.  14 The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so. 15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. 16 For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.” 17 The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19 I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. 20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.” 21 You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?” 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

There are two halves to today’s message: The first half is about choosing a future with hope. And the second half is about listening to God’s prophet. Let’s start by choosing a future with hope. 

Choose a future with hope:

Another question for you to consider: Is the future fixed?

There are some who believe the future is fixed and there’s nothing we can do to change it. These people think the future is up to fate.

Believing the future is set in stone comes with a number of problems. For one thing, it undermines hope and creates a sense of apathy or despair in the person who thinks this way.

If you really believe the future is pre-determined and there’s nothing you can do about it, then you will be inclined to care less. A fixed future is devoid of any ethical considerations. If I can’t change the future, then my actions in the present don’t matter. I may as well do whatever makes me feel good. You become reckless and lose your sense of responsibility. A rebel without a cause.

At the other extreme, there are those who don’t believe the future is fixed at all. They think we create our own future. These people have a strong belief in themselves and their own abilities. They tend to be quite driven or intense.

If you really believe the future depends entirely on you, then that’s a lot of pressure. That comes with heaps of worry and not much peace. Human beings need some freedom but total freedom is a terrifying thing. If you go sky diving you don’t want to be free of your parachute, that would be disastrous.  

The person who believes the future is totally on them tends to take on too much responsibility. They don’t leave room for God to do something unexpected.

Just as there is no hope in thinking it is all up to fate, there is no real hope in thinking it is all up to you either. Because when you fail yourself, and everyone does fail eventually, you have no safety net.  

We are asking the question: is the future fixed? Somewhere in the middle of the spectrum are those who answer both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Some things are fixed but not everything. We can have some influence over the future, but there are other things we have no control over and simply have to accept.

Hope is the capacity to imagine a better future, a good future, the best is yet to come. If you believe the choices you make matter in shaping the future, but that it doesn’t depend entirely on you, that ultimately God will work it all for good, then you have hope.

There are of course those who might say, I don’t know whether the future is fixed or not. That might be because they are too lazy to wrestle with the hard questions. Or it might be because the future has ambushed them and they are not sure of anything at the moment.    

Deuteronomy believes that ultimately God is in control of the meta-narrative of human history, but the choices human beings make still influence the course the future takes. God uses our choices in shaping the future. To obey God, in faith, is to choose abundant life. To receive Christ, in faith, is to choose a heavenly future, beyond this life.  

In verses 10-11 of Deuteronomy 18, Moses lists several things the Israelites are not to do. No divination, no magic, no witchcraft, no child sacrifice, no consulting the dead and so on. This list illustrates the sorts of things people sometimes do in order to try and know the future or even control the future.

There are still people today, in New Zealand, who do this kind of stuff. People who try to predict the future by reading tarot cards or tea leaves or the stars. Or, maybe they try to control the future by casting spells or sacrificing the wellbeing of their children in order to pursue a love affair or some other fantasy.

These people either believe the future is fixed and cannot change or they believe they create their own future. Either way, their hope is not in God. The Lord hates all this witchy poo stuff because it is based on a lie and it destroys people’s capacity for hope. It’s takes away people’s freedom. It is not good for the human soul.

There may be some here who have dabbled in this sort of thing, or maybe you’ve got in over your head. Perhaps you were at a fair ground one day and out of curiosity you got your palm read by Madam Zelda. Or maybe you were grieving for a loved one and went to a medium to try and contact them. Or perhaps you and your friends had too much to drink one night and tried a séance. Or maybe you’ve done worse.   

Does this mean you are excluded from God’s people forever? Is there no hope for you? Well, not necessarily.

Your future is not yet set in concrete. You have some influence over your future. You can choose not to do that sort of thing anymore. You can choose life and trust your future to Jesus. God, who loves you very much, has the power to deliver you from your past.  

The message of Deuteronomy is summed up in verse 13, which reads…

You must remain completely loyal to the Lord your God.

We must not divide our loyalty between God and anything else. We can’t say, in God we trust, and then rely on horoscopes or gazing into a crystal ball. 

Verse 13 is another way of saying, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. This is how we choose life and a future with hope for ourselves.

Okay, that’s first part of our message, choose a future with hope. The second part is about listening to God’s prophet. God, in his grace, provides an alternative to airy fairy magic. God is willing to reveal the future through his chosen spokesperson.  

Listen to God’s prophet:

In verse 15 of Deuteronomy 18, Moses says: The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him.                                                          

Israel did not need to go to a medium or a spiritist to find out the future. God sent his own messenger. In fact, God raised up a series of prophets throughout the Old Testament who spoke His messages to the people as they needed it. Men and women like Samuel, Deborah, Nathan, Isaiah, Huldah, Micah, Jeremiah, Amos, Ezekiel, Daniel and so on. These prophets had a special role in keeping the nation accountable to the Law and their covenant with Yahweh.

In a healthy democracy the government’s powers are not concentrated in one person or one institution. Rather, power is separated, so the people who make the law are not the same as the people who enforce the law or decide disputes.

Traditionally, a democracy has three official institutions:

There is the legislature, which is the people who make the laws (for example, our Members of Parliament).

Then there is the judiciary, which are the people who adjudicate disputes (the courts and the judges).

And thirdly, there is the executive, which are the people who enforce the law (that would be the police).

There is another (unofficial) institution known as the fourth estate. We call it the news media; that is, journalists or the press. It is the job of the news media to report the facts concerning parliamentary, police and court proceedings, in a balanced and unbiased way, keeping the governing authorities accountable. 

In some ways our modern democracy, with its four estates, has its roots in the structure of government Moses prescribed for Israel. Yahweh (and Moses) recommended a separation of power in government.

Yahweh gave the Law through Moses. Judges were appointed in a democratic way to adjudicate disputes between people. And the Levites and priests had a role in enforcing the law.

The king (as we heard last week) was an optional extra. It wasn’t his job to make the law. His main job was to be a good example in keeping the law. He might also support the judges and the priests in making sure justice was done.

But it was the role of the prophets to be the fourth estate. The prophets were like credible investigative journalists who reported the facts in order to keep the king, the judges and the priests accountable to God’s law. Staying loyal to Yahweh was the key to life and a future with hope.

Now, in using this analogy, I do not mean to imply that journalists today are the contemporary prophets of our world. God can choose whoever he wants to be his spokesperson.

We might also think of God’s prophet as a doctor, diagnosing illness in the nation. If you have diabetes, you don’t want the doctor fudging your results and saying you will be fine. You need to understand clearly what the problem is and how best to manage your health going forward, so you have a future with hope.

Likewise, if God’s people are losing their saltiness and conforming to the pattern of this world, then they need God’s prophet to diagnose their spiritual illness and prescribe the right treatment to restore them.

Asking the prophet for advice was sort of like phoning a friend. If something was amiss and the king or the priests or the judges were unsure what to do next, they could inquire of God through his chosen prophet.

Of course, the prophet also passed on messages from God when no one had asked for his input. Like when the prophet Nathan confronted David after the king had murdered Uriah and committed adultery with Bathsheba. 

God’s prophet was a friend to Israel, but he (or she) was not in the king’s pocket. The prophet was a step removed, operating outside official government channels, able to give an unpopular minority report.

In verse 18 of Deuteronomy 18, the Lord says concerning his prophet, I will put my words in his mouth. This naturally raises questions for us: how did God do that? How did the Lord communicate with the prophets?

Reading through the Old Testament we notice the Lord spoke to the prophets in a variety of ways. It appears that God spoke to Moses and Samuel in a clear, audible voice. Other prophets, like Daniel & Ezekiel, received dreams or visions. Some may have interacted with angels. Elijah heard God not in earthquake, wind or fire but in a still small voice, like a whisper.

I’m not a prophet. I can’t tell you what the future holds specifically. I don’t know when the war in Ukraine will end. Nevertheless, there are times when I sense the word of the Lord has come to me. Not in an audible voice as such. More like a thought planted in my mind.

I know the thought is not my own because it is a better quality thought than the usual rubbish that flows through my brain and it is not a thought I’ve had before. It hasn’t come from any book I’ve read or any TV show I’ve watched.

It is new to me and it feels whole. It fits for the circumstances I’m in. Like the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle, it creates connections and makes sense of other things. God’s word brings order to my thinking.

When the word of the Lord comes, I have to take myself off somewhere quiet and write, because writing helps me to listen to the virgin thought. 

There are times when I’m preaching in church and a stillness comes over the congregation. A kind of holy hush. (I’m sure it happens for other preachers too.) The traffic noise dies down, the rustling of lolly wrappers ceases and people stop coughing or whispering among themselves. I love those moments. In that stillness it seems to me the word of God is at work among us, in our hearts.

I believe the word of the Lord can come to any Christian believer, just not always in the same way. God made us with the capacity to receive his word, to sense his presence touching our spirit.

We cannot control when or how the word of the Lord comes but when it does come we need to pause and listen. Receive it into ourselves.

I wonder how the word of the Lord comes to you.

As God’s spokesperson, the Lord’s chosen prophet held quite a bit of influence in Israel. So there would inevitably be a few pretenders for the role, despite the severe punishment for taking the Lord’s name in vain. How then could you tell who was a bona fide, God authorised prophet and who was a fake? Well, there were three main tests…

Firstly, a true prophet of God speaks in the name of Yahweh and not in the name of some other god. Secondly, the message they preach comes true. And thirdly, they don’t say anything that contradicts the Law of Moses.

The first test, speaking in the name of Yahweh, is the test of clarity. Reading tea leaves or interpreting the entrails of a bird are pretty ambiguous and unclear signs. In contrast to this, the Lord’s prophets are clear about who they represent and what their message is.

Although the poetry and signs of the prophets of old may seem strange to us, their metaphors were not difficult for the people of that time to decipher, even if the prophet’s message was difficult to accept.

John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets, was very clear in his message of repentance, calling the religious leaders of his day a brood of vipers. Despite this clarity, many religious leaders hardened their hearts and chose not to believe John’s testimony concerning Jesus.

The second test, proclaiming a message that comes true, indicates the prophet’s words are verifiable. God’s messages are ‘evidenced based’, in other words. The truth of God’s word is worked out in human history.

We know Jeremiah was legit because his message came true in history. While other self-proclaimed prophets at the time were saying, “Don’t be afraid of Babylon, God will save Jerusalem”, Jeremiah was giving the very unpopular message of, “Don’t resist Babylon, you can’t win”. God upheld Jeremiah’s words because Jeremiah’s words were actually God’s words.     

Centuries later, Jesus (like Jeremiah) wept over Jerusalem when he could see history about to repeat itself. In Luke 19, Jesus predicted the Romans laying siege to the holy city and destroying it. This happened, as Jesus said, in AD 70.

There is a small catch with the verifiable test though. Sometimes true prophets are killed before their predictions can be verified.

The third test of a true prophet, that their message does not contradict the Law of Moses, is the test of consistency. God’s word is consistent. God does not contradict himself.

Jesus criticised the religious leaders for making their man made rules more important than God’s Law. The Pharisees had become so bogged down in the details they couldn’t see the wood for the trees. They were more loyal to their own tradition than they were to God himself and so, like the true prophet he is, Jesus called them out on their blindness.

As you have probably deduced by now, Jesus is the ultimate prophet to succeed Moses. Jesus fulfils the Law and the prophets. Through faith in Jesus, we can know the truth from God and we can choose a future with hope.

Does that mean then, that we have no further need for prophets? Well, no. In his letters to various churches the apostle Paul writes about the gift of prophecy. For Paul it was one of the more important spiritual gifts.

Of course, if someone claims to bring a word of prophecy, we (the church) still need to test that word and discern together if it is legitimate. The threefold test is similar. A true prophet speaks clearly in the name of Jesus. Their message is verifiable and it is consistent with the teachings of Jesus.

The Spirit of Jesus is a Spirit of grace & truth, so we would expect the prophets of Jesus to embody the same Spirit of grace & truth.

Conclusion:

At the beginning of this message I asked the question: What would you give to know the future?

A better question to ask is: What would you give to know Jesus?

I say that’s a better question because Jesus is the future, the eternal future. Jesus is the goal of humanity. He is our hope. If you want to know the future, get to know Jesus. Most of us know Jesus to some degree but none of us knows him completely or fully yet. May we grow deeper in our knowledge of and trust in Christ.

Let us pray… 

Father God, we thank you for not leaving us in the dark. We thank you for revealing your will to us through Jesus. We thank you too for offering us a future with hope. May you empower us by your Spirit to be completely loyal to Christ, for your glory and our own salvation. Amen.         

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • What would you give to know the future? What is it you would want to know and why?
  • Where would you place yourself on the spectrum between a fixed future and a fluid future? What are the implications of thinking the future is fixed? What are the implications of thinking we create our own future?
  • How do we choose life and foster a future with hope?
  • Why does Moses outlaw discerning the future through magic, reading omens, consulting the dead, etc.?
  • Has the word of the Lord ever come to you? What happened? What did the Lord say? How did you respond?
  • How might we test / know whether a prophecy is true or not?   
Tawa Baptist

Servant King

Scripture: Deuteronomy 17:14-20

Video Link: https://youtu.be/nCG_TxxcEk0

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Optional
  • Secure
  • Exemplary
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Did you know there are currently 29 monarchs in the world today? That is, 29 kings or queens who rule over 44 countries.

Only three of these monarchs have absolute power over their country. The Sultan of Oman, the King of Saudi Arabia and the Pope who is king of the city state of the Vatican.

Most of the monarchies are constitutional, which means the king or queen has their power restrained by law. So, for example, King Charles III can’t do whatever he wants.   

Today we continue our series in Deuteronomy. In chapter 17, Moses outlines some requirements for Israel’s king. These are like constitutional rules to moderate the powers of the king. The kings, in ancient Israel, had more power than the King of England does today but they did not have absolute power.  From Deuteronomy 17, verses 14-20 we read…

14 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,” 15 be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite. 16 The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.” 17 He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. 18 When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. 19 It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees 20 and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

Three words to organise our thoughts on this passage: optional, secure and exemplary. Israel’s human king is optional, not compulsory. He is to be secure in the Lord, not anxious. And he is to be exemplary, not a law unto himself. Let’s start with this idea that the king is optional not compulsory.  

Optional:

I’m guessing almost everyone listening to this has a TV or some other device for watching TV in their home. TV’s are an optional extra. They may feel like a necessity but in actual fact they are optional.

You can go through your whole life without watching TV and be quite okay. Human beings survived without TV’s for thousands of years. In fact, TV’s weren’t invented until the 1930’s and they didn’t become common place in people’s homes until the 1950’s and 60’s.  

If you have young children living with you, then you probably want to delay TV watching for them as long as you can. Eventually though, they will go to school or to a friend’s house, become aware that TV’s exist and not want to miss out.

When that day comes, and you are no longer able to withhold the flat screen, as parents you will want to decide how much TV your kids watch and what programmes they view.

The king in ancient Israel was a bit like a TV. The king was optional, not compulsory. Israel did not actually need a human king. The Lord God, Yahweh, was their King and he had provided all the infrastructure the nation needed to function without a human monarch.

The Lord had given the law. He had prescribed a justice system with judges to sort out people’s disputes. And he had appointed priests to teach the law and facilitate worship. The Lord’s leadership structure was flat and power was democratised, spread among the people, not concentrated in one person.      

God and Moses wanted to delay the introduction of a human king as long as possible, especially while the nation was young. But the Lord and Moses knew the day would come when the people would insist on a king like the other nations around them.  

When that day came the Lord, in his grace, would accommodate Israel’s wishes but God wanted to choose the king and moderate his behaviour. Much like a responsible parent wants to manage their child’s TV watching.

Where it says, the king must be a fellow Israelite and not a foreigner, this is a safe guard against outside religious forces that might introduce foreign gods or foreign ways of worshipping. Sort of like a parent wouldn’t let their six year-old watch an R16 movie.

Moving forward in Israel’s history, we read in 1st Samuel chapter 8 that once the people were settled in the land, they did in fact ask for a king like the other nations around them. The prophet Samuel was displeased with this request so he prayed to the Lord and God said to him…

7 “Listen to everything the people say to you. You are not the one they have rejected; I am the one they have rejected as their king. 8 Ever since I brought them out of Egypt, they have turned away from me and worshiped other gods; and now they are doing to you what they have always done to me. 9 So then, listen to them, but give them strict warnings and explain how their kings will treat them.”

God appointed Saul to be Israel’s king and when that didn’t work out the Lord appointed David. David was a king after God’s own heart but most of the human kings were rat bags and made life more difficult for the people.

The human king in ancient Israel was optional, not compulsory. But once Israel got on that roller coaster, there was no getting off for several centuries.

Ideally, Israel’s king was to be secure in the Lord and not anxious.

Secure:

Imagine you are taking a walk in the wilderness. This particular tramp will likely take all day and you don’t know if there will be any streams or watering holes along the way. So you need to take some water with you.

Do you carry the water cupped in your hands or do you take it in a bottle? [Wait] That’s right, you put the water in a bottle. If you try to carry the water in your hands it will soon spill out, plus you won’t have your hands free.

If the water in this little parable represents your security, then putting your security in God is like putting the water in the bottle, it’s a far better option. The king needs to put his security in God and not try to handle it all by himself. 

Another question you might ask yourself, before you go on this walk, is how much water will you carry? Two or three litres should be enough for the day. But a hundred litres wouldn’t make any sense. Not only do you not need a hundred litres, it would be too heavy to carry. You wouldn’t make it very far.

Sometimes we try to make ourselves more secure by accumulating more stuff. And while some stuff is helpful and necessary, too much stuff tends to make us less secure and less effective.

In verses 16-17 of Deuteronomy 17, we learn how the king needs to put his security in the Lord and not try to secure the future through his own efforts or by accumulating power, influence and wealth for himself. In other words, the king must not acquire too many horses, too many wives or too much gold & silver.

Horses, in the context, were essentially weapons of war. Horses and chariots were symbols of military power, like tanks and fighter jets. The king is allowed to have some military equipment but not at the expense of relying on Yahweh to fight for Israel.

King David, one of Israel’s most successful military commanders, did not rely on horses and chariots. He relied on the Lord, famously defeating the Philistine Goliath with a stone and a sling shot. 

The danger with too many royal wives isn’t so much to do with sex. It’s more to do with idolatry. Kings don’t always marry for love. They often marry to secure political alliances with other nations. If the king’s harem is stacked with women who worship foreign gods, then he will be tempted to start worshipping other gods alongside Yahweh.

Just as too many wives will alienate the king from God, too much wealth will alienate the king from the people he is there to serve. Money is not evil in itself. We need some financial resources to get by in this world. The problem is, that too much money (or too little) can distort our perspective.

If you own a huge mansion, seven rental houses, four cars, two boats and a helicopter, with plenty of spare cash in the bank, then it is easy to lose touch with the reality faced by someone who is renting one of your houses and taking the bus to a minimum wage job every day.

So the king should put his security in God, not in the accumulation of weapons, wives and wealth.

There is a reference in verse 16 to not going back to Egypt. Egypt was a land of slavery for the people of Israel. The inference seems to be that if the king makes it his business to expand his military power, his harem and his portfolio of assets, then that will result in a heavy burden of taxation on the people, essentially making the nation slaves to the king’s ambition.

Deuteronomy 17 provides a critique of king Solomon. In 1st Kings 10 & 11 we read of Solomon’s many wives, weapons and wealth and how he turned away from the Lord. Solomon may have been wise and successful but he was not always faithful.

The financial burden his household placed on the people of Israel became intolerable. Solomon broke all the rules for Israelite kings and the people suffered for it.

Returning to our water metaphor, it was like Solomon forced the nation to carry a hundred litres of water for a day’s walk, when he only needed two or three litres. As his reign extended, Solomon’s security was not in the Lord.  

In Matthew 6, in the context of talking about wealth and worry, Jesus says this:

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and gone tomorrow…, won’t he be all the more sure to clothe you?

It is interesting that Jesus talks about king Solomon alongside worry and anxiety. Is Jesus suggesting that, despite all his wealth and splendour, Solomon was actually quite anxious and insecure? [1]  

Ironically, the more stuff a person accumulates, the more worry they create for themselves. Not that poverty is the answer. Being poor creates anxiety too. Better to aim for moderation. Give us this day our daily bread.

King David had his head on straight. As we read in David’s psalm, The Lord is my shepherd… In other words, the Lord God is my security.

The point is, Israel’s king needs to find his security in the Lord and not be anxious. If the king puts his security in military power or political marriage alliances or material wealth, then he will always be wanting more.

But when the king puts his security in God, he sets the right kind of example for his people and the nation is better off.

Exemplary:

After her coronation Oath, Queen Elizabeth was presented with a Bible and these words: ‘Our gracious Queen: to keep your majesty ever mindful of the law and the Gospel of God as the Rule for the whole life and government of Christian Princes, we present you with this Book, the most valuable thing that this world affords.’

This idea of giving Queen Elizabeth a copy of the Bible to read, came from Deuteronomy 17. In verses 18-19 Moses instructs the king to copy out the law himself and to keep that copy handy, reading from it daily throughout his reign.

The point of copying and reading the law like this is to shape the king’s thinking in the ways of the Lord, so the king will make decisions that keep Israel’s covenant with God. The Lord wants the king to be exemplary, to set a good example for the nation.

Kings of other nations made laws to protect their own interests and to regulate the conduct of their subjects. But Israel’s king was to be different. Israel’s king was to regulate himself in accordance with God’s law.

In verse 20 we read how the king is not to consider himself better than his fellow Israelites. This means the king is not above the law. He is first among equals. He is not to change the law or make new laws to suit himself. The king is to be exemplary in keeping the law. The king is to lead by example, in other words.   

Looking a bit deeper we see one of the character traits a king needs is humility. The king needs to keep his feet on the ground and maintain a right understanding of himself in relation to others. Being king does not automatically make him a better person than anyone else. It is important the king does not believe the hype surrounding himself.

The instruction to not accumulate too many weapons, wives or wealth (in verses 16-17) makes sense in light of verse 20. Because it is hard to remain humble, it’s hard to keep your feet on the ground, when your ego is constantly being inflated by the trappings of status and worldly success.

Not many of Israel’s kings managed to follow Moses’ instructions in Deuteronomy 17. King Hezekiah and king Josiah were given special mention as good kings, better than most, but none of the kings really nailed it.

Most of Israel and Judah’s kings led the people astray by their example and as a consequence Jerusalem was conquered by the Babylonians and the survivors were sent into exile.

We might wonder how Deuteronomy 17 applies today. Can we, for example, use these verses as a guide when voting for our political leaders? Well, maybe, but we would be hard pressed to find any politician today who measured up to the ideal leader in Scripture.

Having said that, if a political leader is super rich or a philanderer or arrogant or a poor example of a human being, then that raises some red flags and we probably shouldn’t support them with our vote.

We do better to apply the principles outlined in Deuteronomy 17 to ourselves, whether we are in a leadership position or not. We could, for example, ask ourselves questions like…

Where is my security placed? Is my security in God or is it in my own strength or my own ability? Is my security based on my career or my bank balance or my reputation or my youthful good looks?

Can I honestly say with David; The Lord is shepherd (my security)? Or am I compensating for my insecurity with a flash car or by criticising others or with some other self-promoting strategy? 

Humility (keeping your feet on the ground) is a key indicator that your security is well placed in the Lord.

Thinking of how today’s passage applies to us personally, another question we might ask ourselves is, how often do I read my Bible? And, by extension, do I make life decisions with reference to God’s moral law in the Bible? For example, do I consider what God might want when buying and selling stuff or making career decisions or taking care of my family?

Is the lifestyle I lead a good example to others or is it a stumbling block? Children are always learning. They are always on. And their main teacher is the example of the adults around them.

Conclusion:

Of course, Deuteronomy 17 is not primarily about us or our political leaders. These verses are first and foremost about Jesus. Deuteronomy 17 describes what God’s true Messiah looks like and Jesus fits the bill perfectly.

Jesus had no horses or chariots. He did not care for military power. Jesus walked the path of non-violence, making himself vulnerable instead.

Jesus had no wife and was not at all interested in creating political alliances. He said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world’.

Likewise, Jesus did not accumulate gold and silver for himself. He is humble in heart, near to the poor and broken hearted. Jesus understands how hard life can be and he cares for you.

Jesus is 100% secure in God his Father, willing to wash his disciples’ feet and able to say: the greatest among you is the servant of all.  

Not only did Jesus know the law, he also fulfilled the law in a way that no one before him or after him has ever been able to do.   

Jesus is the ideal King, the prime example of what it means to remain faithful and obedient to God, even unto death on a cross. Jesus is our servant King.

Let us pray…

Father God, you are sovereign over all the earth. You are our security. We pray for the earthly leaders you have appointed to govern in this world. Give them wisdom and courage to serve your purpose. We pray for ourselves. Help us to follow the example of Jesus, our eternal King, for your glory. Amen.   

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • Why does Moses discourage the king from accumulating too many weapons, wives and wealth?
  • Where is your security placed? How do you know where your security is placed?
  • How often do you read the Bible? In what ways do you (or can you) make life decisions with reference to God’s moral law in the Bible? (E.g. when buying or selling something, how you spend your time, how you treat your family, career decisions, etc.)
  • Discuss / reflect on the ways Jesus meets God’s requirements of a king, as detailed in Deuteronomy 17.   
  • Who has set a good example for you in life? What in particular was helpful about the example they set? What kind of example do you set for others?

[1] As Walter Brueggemann observes, it is not an accident that Solomon is cited by Jesus as the quintessential anxious one who, in all his power and wealth, turned out to be second rate. C.f. Walter Brueggemann, Deuteronomy, page 187.

Tawa Baptist

Food for Thought

Scriptures: Deuteronomy 14:2-21 and Mark 7:14-23

Video Link: https://youtu.be/iBoegaDmB8s

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Relationship first
  • Choose life
  • Follow Jesus
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

For several years I attended a school with a fairly strict dress code. Everyone had to wear the correct uniform in the right way. You couldn’t be found with your shirt hanging out or your socks down.

What’s more you couldn’t start the day with dirty shoes. Every morning, during winter, we lined up for an inspection and if your shoes were not clean enough you had to polish them before you were allowed to go to assembly or class.

Having dirty shoes is not a moral offense, like lying or stealing. It is more of a ceremonial offense making one unfit to participate in school life. It wasn’t that moral concerns were irrelevant. You still got in trouble for lying or stealing. But being well presented was part of the brand of the school. Muddy shoes and untucked shirts went against that brand.      

Today we continue our series in Deuteronomy. Much of what we have looked at in Deuteronomy so far has been to do with moral concerns, like the ten commandments. In today’s passage the concern is less moral and more ceremonial. From Deuteronomy 14, verse 1 we read…

You are the children of the Lord your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave the front of your heads for the dead, 2 for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured possession. 3 Do not eat any detestable thing. 4 These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, 5 the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope and the mountain sheep.  6 You may eat any animal that has a divided hoof and that chews the cud. 7 However, of those that chew the cud or that have a divided hoof you may not eat the camel, the rabbit or the hyrax. Although they chew the cud, they do not have a divided hoof; they are ceremonially unclean for you. 8 The pig is also unclean; although it has a divided hoof, it does not chew the cud. You are not to eat their meat or touch their carcasses. 9 Of all the creatures living in the water, you may eat any that has fins and scales. 10 But anything that does not have fins and scales you may not eat; for you it is unclean. 11 You may eat any clean bird. 12 But these you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, 13 the red kite, the black kite, any kind of falcon, 14 any kind of raven, 15 the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, 16 the little owl, the great owl, the white owl, 17 the desert owl, the osprey, the cormorant, 18 the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat. 19 All flying insects are unclean to you; do not eat them. 20 But any winged creature that is clean you may eat. 21 Do not eat anything you find already dead. You may give it to the foreigner residing in any of your towns, and they may eat it, or you may sell it to any other foreigner. But you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

The Old Testament contains some weird and wonderful stuff and the verses I just read fall into the weird category. Weird from our point of view at least. Before we go any further let me say straight off the bat, these rules about what you can and can’t eat do not apply to us today.

They are not moral laws for all people at all times. They are ceremonial rules intended specifically for ancient Israel. Why then are we bothering with these verses? Well, if you look beyond the letter of the law you find its spirit. It’s not primarily about diet. First and foremost, it’s about Israel’s relationship with God.

Relationship first:

If you are invited to someone’s house for a meal, out of respect for your host, you might take off your shoes before entering their home.

There is nothing morally wrong with wearing shoes inside, it’s simply a polite protocol that shows respect for the host. You don’t want to transfer any dirt from outside onto their carpet. You take off your shoes to take care of the relationship.

Likewise, if your host offers you a range of food choices, buffet style, you choose something you like from the buffet and eat that. You don’t turn your nose up at what is offered and order in some Uber Eats KFC instead. That would be rude. It’s not about the food, it’s about your relationship with the host.

In the context of Deuteronomy, the Lord God (Yahweh) is the host and the nation of Israel is his special guest. Deuteronomy 14 spells out what’s on the menu and what’s not. As Yahweh’s guests, Israel is to respond to the Lord’s gracious invitation by sticking to the things on the menu.

This idea that Israel’s relationship with God comes first is clearly shown in verses 1-3. These verses (among others) describe Israel’s relationship with the Lord God. The people of Israel are God’s children. They are a holy people, set apart for Yahweh. They are a chosen people. God invited Israel into relationship with himself. And Israel are the Lord’s treasured possession, a special toanga.

Here’s the thing. Israel are accepted by Yahweh before they obey any of the laws. Yahweh’s acceptance of and relationship with Israel comes first. If the law of Moses is the cart, then Israel’s relationship with Yahweh is the horse that pulls the cart. 

Following the dietary requirements of Deuteronomy 14 was part of Israel’s right response to Yahweh’s gracious invitation. By following the Lord’s rules about what they could and could not eat, Israel was behaving like a respectful guest and receiving Yahweh’s hospitality in an appropriate way.

So, every time an Israelite household sat down to share a kosher meal, they were reaffirming their close and special relationship with Yahweh.

Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, we too are able to participate in the family of God. In and through Christ we too are God’s treasured possession. Whenever we share communion we affirm our close and special relationship with the Lord (and with each other).

Not only is Deuteronomy 14 about Israel’s special relationship with Yahweh, it’s also about choosing life, not death. 

Choose life:

Although it was before my time, people who lived in the 1950’s and 60’s tell me that Christians in general (and Baptists in particular) were not allowed to do certain things. For example, you could not drink alcohol, you could not play cards, you could not go to the movies and above all you could never dance.

Most Christians these days don’t have a problem with those sorts of activities, provided the drinking is in moderation, the card playing is for fun, the movie isn’t R18 and the dancers have some rhythm (or at least don’t twerk).

When we read through the first 21 verses of Deuteronomy 14 we see this list of things the Israelites were not allowed to eat (in red). But we might overlook the list of the things they can eat (in green).

Moses gets quite specific about all the varieties of birds that cannot be eaten, then takes a broad brush strokes approach with the birds that can be eaten. Basically, there were far more birds the Israelites could eat. The smorgasbord of food options available to the Israelites was pretty wide and varied. God is generous.

In all of this we need to remember that ceremonially unclean does not mean morally bad, it means something like common or taboo. The hawk is not an evil creature. It is part of God’s good creation. We need the bio-diversity that hawks bring. Likewise, an owl is not intrinsically bad. Without owls we might be overrun with rats and mice. Owl’s serve God’s creative purpose too.

Experts have offered a variety of reasons why a particular animal was deemed unfit for eating. Was it because some of the taboo foods were associated with Canaanite religion? Maybe, but then some of the kosher foods were also associated with Canaanite religion.

Perhaps some of the animals carried disease and were not good for people’s health? Then again, the other nations seemed to be okay eating pork.

The Bible doesn’t explicitly state why God forbade the consumption of some animals but allowed others to be eaten. So any conclusions we draw need to be held loosely. The will of God is inscrutable.

That being said, we can infer from the text that the most likely reason an animal was forbidden for Jewish consumption is because of its association with death. One of the overarching messages of Deuteronomy is ‘choose life’.

Lloyd Jones wrote a novel called Mr Pip, which was made into a film. The story is set in 1989 during the Bougainville civil war in Papua New Guinea. Mr Pip stays behind in PNG, the only white man left, and becomes a school teacher to the local children.

Long story short, Mr Pip is captured by some soldiers, killed and fed to the village pigs. After the soldiers leave, the local people kill the pigs and bury them. They can’t eat the pigs because the pigs have eaten their beloved Mr Pip.

Most of the creatures designated as unclean, in Deuteronomy 14, are carnivores or scavengers that feed on dead carrion or they are ground creatures in constant contact with unclean matter, and so they are associated with death. Israel could not eat vultures because who knows what the vulture may have eaten.

At the same time, most of the animals that are designated as clean are in fact the same sort of creatures the Israelites used as sacrifices to Yahweh. So they were associated with redemption and life (or right relationship) with God.

Some of you may be curious as to the meaning of verse 21, where it says:

…Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.

We can’t be sure exactly how to interpret this but, if the context is about choosing life, then it has something to do with giving new life a chance and not being wasteful with food.

Don’t kill a baby animal just to satisfy your appetite. Let the mother and its new born simply enjoy each other for a while. To cook a young goat in its mother’s milk is unnecessary, self-indulgent and a bit cruel really.

Perhaps the message here is that, when it comes to food and what you eat, exercise some self-control and show some care for the other creatures God has made. Thinking of the welfare of animals these days might mean buying free range eggs, for example. Or it might mean eating more plant based meals.

In keeping with this theme of ‘choosing life’ and not associating with death, we read in verse 1: You are the children of the Lord your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave the front of your heads for the dead,  

People in the ancient world could be quite superstitious. Some cultures believed the dead had a kind of power over the living. The Canaanites, for example, lacerated themselves or shaved the hair off the front of their heads as a way of gaining favourable influence with their departed ancestors. [1]

Moses is laying that superstition to rest. Moses is saying, you are God’s children. You are set apart for life. The dead cannot touch you. Do not be afraid. Do not harm yourselves to appease the dead and do not try to contact them.

‘Shaving the front of your heads’ sounds a bit like getting a mullet haircut. Business up front, party out the back. Most people these days don’t get a mullet haircut for the dead. It is simply a fashion choice. So, you don’t need to feel guilty if you ever had a mullet.

Likewise, Deuteronomy’s understanding of self-harm is quite different from our contemporary understanding. It’s not the same thing. These days, people don’t usually cut themselves to make peace with the dead. They are driven by other compulsions and need compassionate, skilled help. They don’t need judgment.

Okay, so Deuteronomy 14 isn’t just about food. It’s first and foremost about Israel’s special relationship with Yahweh and it is about choosing life, not associating with death. But we are not ancient Israelites. We are Christians. We follow Jesus. What then did Jesus have to say on this subject?

Follow Jesus:

From Mark 7, verse 18, we read…

…“Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? 19 For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) 20 He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

Clearly, Jesus was more concerned with morality than he was ceremony.   

The radicalness of Jesus’ teaching here is lost on us to a large degree. We can’t really appreciate how important the kosher food regulations were for Jews. Deuteronomy 14 wasn’t just a menu for them. It was a matter of cultural identity, not to mention religious integrity.

The prophet Daniel and his friends refused to eat any meat while they were in exile in Babylon. They became vegetarians so they wouldn’t unwittingly break the Lord’s ceremonial food law.

Not eating bacon was part and parcel of what it meant to be Jewish. So when Jesus comes along and says, you can eat whatever you want, he must have sounded like a heretic to his Jewish audience or at least unpatriotic.

It appears Jesus’ words didn’t really penetrate straight away. In Acts 10, some years after Jesus’ death & resurrection, the apostle Peter needed some convincing (in the form of a threefold vision) before he would accept the fact that it was okay to eat non-kosher food.

Why the change? Well, the Jewish food laws were a barrier for Gentiles coming to Christ. The first Christians were Jews and if they couldn’t eat with Gentiles then the gospel wouldn’t spread. It had always been God’s intention that people of all nations be saved and included in his household, through Christ.    

This means the people of God are no longer defined by the food they eat. We find our identity in Christ. The Jesus’ way (of grace & truth, love & morality) is our brand.

Does this mean then, that the whole of the Old Testament can be set aside? No. The moral aspects of the law (like the ten commandments) still apply. But much of the ceremonial aspects, like food laws and animal sacrifice, no longer apply because they have been fulfilled by Jesus.

Think of it like this: when you pour concrete the cement is runny so you need boxing to contain the slurry. Boxing is the wooden frame around the edges which holds the wet cement in place. Once the concrete has set, you can take the boxing away because it has served its purpose and is no longer needed.   

If the moral law (the ten commandments) is like the cement foundation, then the ceremonial food laws are sort of like the boxing. A necessary framework, for a time, while the moral law sets.

But, with the coming of Christ, the boxing of the ceremonial law has served its purpose and can be removed. However, the foundation of the moral law still remains.

Or take our church car park as another example. There is currently a barrier at the entrance of the carpark, restricting access. This is because the asphalt hasn’t been laid yet. The barrier might seem a bit inconvenient or even unwelcoming, but it is necessary to protect the base course. Once the tar seal is firmly in place we can remove the barrier.

The ceremonial food laws were sort of like a barrier. Necessary for a time but with the coming of Christ, a new seal was laid and the purpose of the food law barrier was fulfilled.

In saying the ceremonial law can be removed, we need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The baby in this metaphor is the moral law and the bathwater is the ceremonial law. The kosher food laws may no longer apply but what Jesus says does still apply. We follow Jesus.  

What we see, when we look at Jesus’ words in Mark 7, is a continuity between the Old & New Testaments. Jesus goes beyond the letter of the law to find its spirit. When it comes to questions of clean and unclean, kosher and common, it is the state of a person’s heart that matters, more than the food they eat.

The heart in this context is a metaphor for a person’s inner life. Not the blood pump in your chest but rather your mind & emotions, your thoughts & desires.

The Old Testament often talks about the importance of your heart. God looks at the heart while human beings judge by outward appearances.

As Moses says in Deuteronomy 10: Circumcise your heart, which is a graphic way of saying dedicate your heart to God. Don’t fake your worship. Love God genuinely, from the inside out.

Jesus’ words also line with up Deuteronomy’s message to choose life. Theft, murder, greed, envy, arrogance and all the other evils Jesus mentions, represent death and dysfunctional relationships. We choose life not so much by avoiding bacon but rather by avoiding evil thoughts and wrong doing.

It’s not that the food we eat is unimportant. A healthy balanced diet helps to support a healthy functioning mind. The point is, we need to guard our heart from even the thought of evil.

Two things you can do to guard your heart. Firstly, watch what you feed your mind on. If your diet of TV and internet is heavy in violence and sex, then you make a pure thought life more difficult for yourself.

Secondly, watch who you spend your time with? If you hang out a lot with people who only care about money and reputation, then your heart is at greater risk of greed and envy.

Conclusion:

Choose life. Choose that which will lift your mind to higher things. As the apostle Paul says: …whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 

Let us pray…

Father God, we thank you for Jesus, in whom we become your special people. Guard our hearts and minds we ask. Help us to choose life, that we would walk in freedom and righteousness. Amen.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading these Scriptures and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • What is the difference between the moral law and the ceremonial law? How does the ceremonial law support the moral law?
  • What is the spirit (or purpose) of the food laws?
  • Why does our relationship with God need to come first (before attempting to follow his law / way)?
  • What does it mean for us today to choose life? What kinds of death related activities should we avoid?
  • Discuss / reflect on the continuity between Jesus’ teaching in Mark 7 and Moses’ teaching in Deuteronomy.
  • Why do the ancient food laws no longer apply? What does still apply?
  • What specific things can you do to guard your heart?

[1] Refer Daniel Block, NIVAC, page 344.

Tawa Baptist

Discipleship – by Becca

Scripture: Deuteronomy 6:5-9

Good morning everyone!

When Will asked me to speak, I planned to talk about the passages where Jesus invites the children to come to him. As I read and planned, it kept changing and eventually I ended up focusing on verses from Deuteronomy which fits in perfectly for our current sermon series. Will actually covered these verses as part of one of his sermons back in July, so they should be familiar to you all.

Deuteronomy 6:5-9 reads, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Never forget these commands that I am giving you today. Teach them to your children. Repeat them when you are at home and when you are away, when you are resting and when you are working. Tie them on your arms and wear them on your foreheads as a reminder. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.”

These verses are really about discipleship. The Greek word used in the Bible for discipleship, mathēteuō has two definitions, to be a disciple of someone, and to make a disciple of someone, and both meanings are included in these verses. 

To be a disciple means being a student, someone who adheres to and follows a particular doctrine.  It’s not about being the best Christian. Being a disciple of Jesus isn’t some status level that we can attain, like Gold status for flying a certain number of times with Air New Zealand. We often hear of the 12 disciples, Jesus’ closest friends and students, but in Acts, anybody who comes to know and believe in Jesus as God’s Son is called a disciple. 

Jesus’ 12 disciples stayed with him, they learnt and studied and lived life together. Disciples study and remember a teacher’s words, but more than that, they learn by imitating the teacher’s entire way of life. 

For Christians, being a disciple is about loving God with all of our being and constantly striving to imitate Jesus. We are told by Moses in Deuteronomy, and by Jesus in the Gospels, to love God with everything we have. With all our energies, and with all our efforts, and with all our understanding. That is a big ask, especially when we are trying to manage everything else going on in our lives – our work, families, children, homes, friendships, volunteering roles and so on. Putting God first, above all of that is hard!

Reflection question – I have a few of these questions throughout, they are things that have challenged me and may be a challenge to you as well. Where are your energies going? What are your priorities? Are you loving God with all of your heart, soul, and strength?

—————

The next part of our passage in Deuteronomy goes on to say, “Never forget these commands.” This is another aspect of being a disciple. Later on in the chapter, Moses warns the Israelites not to forget God when they are rich and don’t have to rely on him anymore. 

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant – then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”

How often do we call out to God when we need him, but kind of ignore him through the good times? Or maybe we find it easy to have faith when life is going well, but feel abandoned or alone when things get tough? It can be challenging to be a follower of Christ in all situations, in all aspects of our lives, particularly in a society which often looks down on Christians. But these verses remind us that being a disciple is a full-time job and requires us to commit to following God all of the time, never forgetting his commands.

—————

In the next verses, Moses gives the Israelites, and us, ideas for how we can ensure we don’t forget or put aside God and his commands. “Repeat them when you are at home and when you are away, when you are resting and when you are working. Tie them on your arms and wear them on your foreheads as a reminder. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.” 

Some Orthodox Jews put tefllins, these prayer boxes, on their heads and wrists when they pray, to acknowledge these verses. However, you’ll be pleased to know that most commentaries on these passages agree that the instructions to tie God’s commands on our arms and foreheads are not meant to be literal, but rather an example of what we can do to remember God’s Word.

Before we can remember God’s Word though, we need to make sure we are reading it! My Nana is one of those people who can recall a Bible verse or story for just about any situation. You could be stuck up a tree and she’d tell you the story of Zaccheus, or you could be talking about a friend, and she would recite a verse from Proverbs or Ecclesiastes about the importance of friendships, or you hit a pothole as you’re driving, and she’d tell you about the part in Numbers where the earth opened up and swallowed a whole bunch of people. 

As long as I can remember, she’s had amazing habits for reading her Bible and doing studies – every day she sets aside time to read, pray, and learn about God. I’m not sure what she did when she was younger and had a busy family, but when we’ve stayed with her, it’s pretty common to wake up and come out to the kitchen and see her sitting in her dressing gown, with her Bible and study open, while she drinks her morning cup of tea. I am still working on building those habits myself, but I’m so inspired by people like her, and Will and Daryl and I’m sure many others here, who have so much Scripture committed to heart.

Reflection – We need to think about our own Bible reading, and what our own personal, modern version of these verses could be. Do you set aside a time to spend with God and his Word each day? What’s your version of tying God’s Word to your arms or writing it on your doorpost? Is it wearing a cross necklace, or a bracelet engraved with a special verse? Is it having a Bible verse as the screensaver on your phone or a Bible app on your homescreen? Is it a meaningful poster/photo/verse on your wall at home? What can we do to remind ourselves to follow God all throughout the day?


—————

Jesus’ last words on earth are known as the Great Commission. “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Discipling others largely refers to teaching or mentoring, both in word and by example. 

In our Deuteronomy passage, we come back to the “Teach them to your children” instruction. That is the one sentence in this passage which gives explicit instruction on discipling others. It’s as if making disciples is actually a part of being a disciple. 

The Bible makes it clear that teaching our children about God and his Word is an important part of our role as parents.

  • Ephesians 6:4 says, Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.  (I love the part about not exasperating your children – every time I read it I see myself as a teenager, rolling my eyes at my Dad’s lame jokes!)
  • Proverbs 22:6 – Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. 
  • And in 2 Timothy 1:5, where Paul is writing to Timothy, he says: I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. 

This last verse shows us the importance of grandparents and wider whanau in teaching children. 

The Barna group, a well-regarded research group in the US, found that 95% of children’s ministry workers believed that the primary, that is the main source of children’s discipling should be their home (i.e. their parents and families), while only 49% of parents with children at church believed that they were the primary source, with 51% saying that church should be the primary source of discipling for their kids. 

The same study found that only 50% of church parents said their children pray at least once a week at home, and 42% said their children hear the gospel at least once a week. If we are to believe that parents have the primary role of discipling their children, since they have the most time with them and know their child the best, then church needs to be there as a support for the parents, discipling the parents as they disciple their children.

Discipling children isn’t just the role of parents, however. In the book of Mark, Jesus tells off the people who try to keep the children away and welcomes the children to come to him. He didn’t say, “nope those kids aren’t my problem, it’s up to their parents to sort them out”, but rather brought them in to be blessed and be part of the group. I know there are many, many people in our church who are like Jesus in the way they treat children at Tawa Baptist, and I have always felt like my own two girls are welcomed and loved here. 

Going back to our Deuteronomy verses once more, and the sentence, “Teach them to obey my commands.” Many of the same tools suggested for parents and churches to disciple children are also useful for discipling other adults. Discipling other adults may mean teaching unbelievers or very new believers; it might mean mentoring someone in our church or working with other Christians. Jesus did all of those things as part of his discipleship, and we can too. Here are three key things we can all do to disciple others, whether they are our own children or someone else.

First, knowing our Bibles. We’ve already covered this but if you are trying to teach someone about God’s Word, it’s really handy to know what you are talking about. Little kids are especially good at asking the hard questions, like “Who made God?” and “How did God make the world if he doesn’t have hands?” When Tillie was two, we were heading to her first dentist appointment. On the way, we were talking about how God is everywhere. She asked, “will God even be at the dentist’s office?” and, trying to be a good mum and reassure her, I said “of course!” We walked into the dentist office, and she took one look at the female receptionist and in a very loud voice, as Tillie generally uses, asked, “Is that God?!” When I told her no, she persisted, “But how do you know that’s not God?” I have to admit, that was a time I didn’t have a great answer.


Another example of how knowing our Bibles is important can be seen in the story of Apollos, Priscilla and Aquila, in Acts 18:24-26. “At that time a Jew named Apollos came to Ephesus. He was an educated man from Alexandria. He knew the Scriptures very well. Apollos had been taught the way of the Lord. He spoke with great power. He taught the truth about Jesus. But he only knew about John’s baptism. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. Priscilla and Aquila heard him. So they invited him to their home. There they gave him a better understanding of the way of God.” – Priscilla and Aquila were able to help Apollos because they had good scripture knowledge themselves, and they discipled Apollos, who was then able to go and preach widely to others.

A second tool for discipling others is building relationships. 

One of the special things about our church logo is the different people represented. There’s a family with children, single people, an elderly couple, and so on. Having good relationships is a key tool in discipleship. Children who have meaningful relationships with adults in the church stay around at church, and in their faith, at a far higher rate than those who don’t have those relationships. This is also true for adults as well – would you be more likely to keep coming to a new church if you were seeing strangers who only talk to each other, or people who you were starting to build friendships and relationships with? 

Intergenerational relationships are important as well. Children need to hear about Jesus from people outside their own families. Titus 2 calls for older women and men to teach and train the younger generation, while 1 Timothy 4:12 calls on young people to “be an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.” 

Hebrews 10:24-25 talks about all the church members coming together: “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another.”

The third and final tool for discipling others is sharing about Jesus. Obvious, right? While explicit formal teaching of God’s Word is important when discipling our children and other people, it’s just as important to include God in our everyday conversations. 

One of the ways we learn is by watching other people and then having a go ourselves. The Parenting for Faith course talks about using “windows” or little moments for children to get glimpses into our relationship with Jesus. It’s about going about our everyday lives and showing our children how we include God as a part of that. For example, letting your children see you study your Bible, or pray in a difficult moment, or thank God for a rainbow and the promise of hope. 

The book Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids highlights an important truth: “The greatest gift you can give your children is to let them see you struggle and wrestle with how to live a lifetime of trust in God.” This doesn’t happen once a week or overnight. Showing children your relationship with Jesus, imperfect, messy, and difficult as it may be, is one of the best ways to help them develop their own relationships. And as our own relationships with God deepen, sharing these moments with our children becomes more natural.

For people who have grown up children, the Parenting for Faith course suggests that even though your children aren’t living at home with you, they are still learning from you what older, wiser life looks like with God. Even if they seem uninterested, they will still be watching you and learning from you whenever they see you – even if they don’t say so. The same goes for discipling others, Christian or not, – just living our lives and being open about our relationship with God can make a big difference. 

Reflection questions… Who in our lives are you or could you be discipling? What is your role in discipleship within the church?

————

This morning we’ve talked about being a disciple and discipling others. Let’s finish off by re-reading Deuteronomy 6:5-9 one more time: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Never forget these commands that I am giving you today. Teach them to your children. Repeat them when you are at home and when you are away, when you are resting and when you are working. Tie them on your arms and wear them on your foreheads as a reminder. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.”

Reflection questions:

  • Deuteronomy 6:5 says “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” Where are your energies going? What are your priorities? Are you loving God with all of your heart, soul, and strength?
  • Verses 7-9 tell us to remember God’s commands. How much time do you spend with God and His Word? What can you do to remind yourself throughout the day?
  • Verse 7 encourages us to teach God’s commands to our children, and Jesus’ last words were telling us to make disciples of all the nations. Who in your life are you or could you be discipling? What is your role in discipleship within the church?
Tawa Baptist

Worship

Scripture: Deuteronomy 12:1-7

Video Link: https://youtu.be/PRaDm5F3LH8

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Distinctive worship
  • Tangible worship
  • Joyful worship
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Preaching is a bit like serving tea. In any sermon you will normally have three ingredients. The text of Scripture, an explanation of the text and then hopefully application of the text. Text, Explanation, Application. T.E.A. spells tea.

Application is the practical part which connects the message to everyday life. The preacher usually gives some examples of how the text applies but ultimately it is up to the listeners to put God’s word into practice.     

The book of Deuteronomy, as a whole, can be thought of as three speeches by Moses to the people of Israel as they stood poised at the edge of the wilderness, about to enter the Promised Land.

Moses’ second (and largest) speech, in chapters 5-26, is shaped very much like a sermon with a text, an explanation and some application. The text Moses is preaching from is the ten commandments of Yahweh, found in chapter five.

In chapters 6-11 Moses explains or unpacks the meaning of Yahweh’s ten words. In a nutshell, the most important thing is love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. That’s the main point of the sermon, the lens through which the law is to be understood and life is to be lived.

Then, in chapters 12-26 of Deuteronomy, Moses outlines various ways in which loving God applies in everyday life. In other words, here are some laws and decrees (some practical things) you can do to demonstrate your love for God.   

Over the past three months I have been explaining the meaning of each of the ten commandments and how these apply for us today, in the light of Jesus’ teaching. This morning we continue our series in Deuteronomy by focusing on chapter 12, part of the application of Moses’ sermon.

In chapter 12 Moses gives some practical instructions about how the Israelites are to worship God once they enter the Promised Land. When it comes to worship, this is what loving God looks like. From Deuteronomy 12, verses 1-7 we read our text…

These are the decrees and laws you must be careful to follow in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess—as long as you live in the land. 2 Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains, on the hills and under every spreading tree, where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. 3 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places. 4 You must not worship the Lord your God in their way.  5 But you are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go; 6 there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you have vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. 7 There, in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the Lord your God has blessed you.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

As I mentioned before, Deuteronomy 12 is mainly concerned with how loving God applies to worship.  Three things to keep in mind. Worship of Yahweh is to be distinctive, tangible and joyful. First, let’s consider the distinctive nature of Israel’s worship.

Distinctive worship:

After a war is finished, the land is often littered with unexploded mines, live artillery shells and booby traps. The retreating army leave a trail of destruction behind them. Before the civilian population can return and rebuild, the army engineers need to clear the ground of dangerous ordinances. 

If the image of cleaning up after a war seems a bit far removed from life in New Zealand, then imagine you have a wasps’ nest in your garden at home. You don’t tolerate the wasps. You get someone in to destroy their nest.

Likewise, if you have rats running around in your ceiling, you don’t fold your hands and do nothing. You exterminate the rats. And, if you have a poisonous plant (maybe a stinging nettle) growing in your garden, then you don’t leave it there. You kill the plant and remove it.

In verses 2-3 of Deuteronomy 12, Moses instructs the Israelites to destroy all the paraphernalia associated with Canaanite religion. God Almighty is completely different from the fake gods of the Canaanites. Yahweh does not want people thinking that he is in any way like these false gods. Therefore, the Israelites are to worship the Lord Almighty in a distinctive way.  

Although the gods of the Canaanites were not real, the way the Canaanites practiced their religion had very real and destructive consequences. In verse 31 of Deuteronomy 12 we read…

31 You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.

Destroying any visual reminders of Canaanite religion was like extracting unexploded land mines or getting rid of a wasps’ nest or exterminating rats or removing a stinging nettle. It was a basic health & safety requirement.

Rather than worshiping Yahweh anywhere they felt like, the Israelites were to gather at one central place for their rituals of worship. That place would be decided by God.

The Canaanites had many gods that they worshipped in many places. Israel had one God whom they worshipped in one place. Israel’s worship of Yahweh was distinctive in its oneness.

The place God chose for people to come and offer their ritual sacrifices moved. At one time the Tabernacle and the ark of the covenant was located in Shechem, then Bethel, then Shiloh and eventually a temple was built in Jerusalem.

Not that God’s presence was limited to that one place. Rather, the central place of worship acted like the hub of a wheel, holding the nation together.   

As Patrick Miller explains, the emphasis is upon the Lord’s choice. The central activity of Israel’s life, which is the worship of the Lord, is fully shaped and determined by the Lord. [1]   

The point is, for Israel’s worship to be distinctive it needs to be pleasing to God, first and foremost. We don’t worship to please ourselves. We worship to please God. We don’t act like Canaanites and do whatever we think is right in our own eyes. We do what is right and good in the eyes of the Lord.

If someone invites you to their birthday party, you come at the time they say, to the place they are celebrating at and you bring a gift, something you know they will enjoy or at least find useful.

You don’t come too late or decide you are going to celebrate at a different venue. And you don’t come empty handed or with a gift you know they won’t enjoy. It’s their party, not yours. It’s about them, it’s not about you.  

How does this apply to us today? Well, a worship gathering is like God’s party. He is the host and we are his guests. Yes, we hope to have a good time at the party. But really it’s not about us. It’s about God and what he wants.

So, if there are some songs in the Sunday service you don’t like, you don’t get upset, because it’s not about your entertainment. You sing to the best of your ability. Or, if the prayers (and speeches) seem too long, you remember, it’s not about my convenience. We are here to celebrate God. Likewise, you don’t ignore the other guests at the party. You talk with them and you get along with each other for the honour and pleasure of the host.

Church is not a shopping mall. We don’t worship God for our own gratification or self-fulfillment. We worship God because he alone is worthy. If God meets us and makes us feel good while we are praising him, then that’s a bonus, a gift to treasure. It’s not an entitlement.

Earlier in the service we heard a reading from John 4, where Jesus has a conversation with a Samaritan woman about worship. The woman says…

19 “Sir, …. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

21 Jesus replied, “…a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem…  22 the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks…”

What Jesus is getting at here is that the one centre for true worship is no longer a place but a person. And Jesus, the Messiah, is that person. Jesus the Christ has made a new covenant with God for us. Therefore, Jesus is the one through whom we worship God.

As Jesus said, ‘where two or three gather in my name, there I am with them’. This means we worship best when we gather with other Christian believers. And the thing that is meant to make our worship distinctive is our love for one another in Christ.

Okay, so that’s the first thing; Israel’s worship was to be distinctive from the nations around them. They were not to conform to the pattern of this world. The second thing is that Israel’s worship was to be tangible. 

Tangible worship:

Virtual reality is a term we have become familiar with in recent years. Virtual reality is a computer generated simulation of a three dimensional image that can be interacted with in a seemingly real way.

Virtual reality is an oxymoron though, because it is not physically real, it is intangible. You can’t eat and be nourished by a virtual sandwich. And, if you hit your thumb with a virtual hammer, you won’t do any damage nor feel any pain.

Israel’s worship was not virtual reality; it was tangible reality, worship with real substance and real consequences. It was physical as well as mental and emotional. From verse 6 we read…

6 there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you have vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.  

The sacrifices and offerings listed in verse 6 are real tangible physical things. They mainly include animals and crops, produce of the land, things you could eat and drink. Israel’s worship was not virtual, it was tangible.  

Burnt offerings refer to sacrifices that were burnt whole as an offering to the Lord. The ancient Hebrew word for a whole burnt offering is holocaust, which took on a new meaning after world war two. 

Most of the other sacrifices and offerings listed in verse 6 could be shared with the Levites, the priests and the poor. So, it wasn’t like the lamb or the cow was completely destroyed every time. Often the meat or the grain or the wine was put to good use in feeding people.

The tithe was meant for sharing with those in need. A tithe is 10 percent of the year’s produce or harvest. In today’s terms it is 10% of your income. In ancient Hebrew thought, the tithe was like rent paid to God for use of the land. Sort of like a share-milker pays a percentage of their income to the farm owner.

The distinctive thing about the tithe though is that God (who is effectively the King and land owner) charges a relatively low rent. By comparison, a share-milker pays around 50% of their income to the land owner. The Lord only asks 10%

In fact, God is so generous he doesn’t keep the 10% rent for himself. He doesn’t need it. Instead the Lord God directs that the tithe owing to him be given to the poor and marginalized, including the Levites (who did not own any land because they were devoted to the Lord’s service).

These days we don’t sacrifice animals as part of our worship of God. Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross to atone for our sins fulfills the law and ends the need for animal sacrifice. Actually, Israel’s animal sacrifice in the context of worship, pointed to Jesus’ sacrifice.   

However, the end of animal sacrifice does not mean the end of tangible worship. As Christian believers, we still offer real, tangible, substantial sacrifices to God. Only the sacrifices we bring are not to atone for sin. They are an expression of our love for God.

When we come to church on a Sunday morning, we might be sacrificing a sleep in or time at the beach. That is tangible worship. When we sing songs in church we are offering a sacrifice of praise. That too is tangible worship, particularly if we don’t feel much like singing.

When we make automatic payments into the church’s bank account or put money in the offering bag; when we buy treats at the bake sale; when we give cash to World Vision or to mission work or the local food bank; we are sacrificing money and worshipping God in a tangible way.

When we volunteer to serve in the life of the church or to help a neighbour in need, we are offering our time, our talents and our energy (very real and tangible things) as an act of worship to God.

One of the most tangible ways we worship God is with our bodies. In Romans 12, Paul says: Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.  

We have a tendency to think of our bodies as our own to do with as we wish. But in Christian thought, one’s body is an instrument for God’s purpose.

When we take care of our bodies by maintaining good rhythms of sleeping, eating and exercise, then we are honouring God for the gift of our body in a very real and tangible way.

When we put our body to work in service to God; when we use our hands to help people and not harm them; when we use our tongues for kind words, not gossip; when we use our ears to listen with care; then we are offering our bodies in real tangible worship to the Lord.

Worshipping God with our bodies also means abstaining from those things that are harmful to us, like illegal drugs or too much alcohol or sleeping around. And for some that may feel like a real sacrifice.

The point is, worship is not just something we do on Sundays or on special occasions like Easter and Christmas. Tangible worship of God is a whole of life thing. As the prophet Micah famously said…

And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humblywith your God.

Justice, mercy and humility are not abstract or ethereal things. They are real, tangible, down to earth actions which lend integrity to our profession of faith. 

Worship of the living God is to be distinctive, tangible and joyful.

Joyful worship:

Joy is not exactly the same as happiness. Happiness is a pleasant feeling that happens to you, almost at random. Like when a butterfly lands near you, or a baby smiles at you or your sports team has a win. Happiness is a quick energy that picks you up, then dumps you soon after. We can’t really manufacture or control the circumstances that precipitate happiness. 

But joy is more intentional than that, more purposeful, less random. Joy is low GI. Joy is a sustained, slow release kind of energy that comes from hope.    

Joy is the fruit of hope. If your hope is to be reunited with loved ones, then joy isn’t just the good feeling you get when that reunion happens. It is also the positive energy that comes from anticipating that reunion before it happens.

If your hope is to live in peace, with justice, then joy isn’t just the good feeling you get when the war ends. It is also the energy that enables you to keep pressing forward in battle and win the war.

If your hope is to reap a good harvest (and get a good return), then joy isn’t just seeing the crop in the barn (or the money in the bank). It is also the energy to do the mahi (the work), to plough the soil, sow the seed and water the crop.

If your hope is to be raised in glory with Jesus, then joy isn’t just seeing Christ return. It is also the energy to endure and be faithful in this life.

Joy is the fruit of hope.

In Deuteronomy 12, verse 7, we read: There, in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the Lord your God has blessed you. 

For ancient Israel, worship wasn’t just singing songs, saying prayers and listening to the sermon. It also involved staying for the shared lunch. Worship of Yahweh is meant to be a joyful celebration, a party which includes everyone.

Now, it would be fair to say that we don’t always feel like rejoicing when we come to church. The circumstances of our life may be difficult and putting on a happy face feels wrong. We just can’t fake it.

Well, you don’t have to fake it. You don’t have to pretend to be happy when something bad happens to you. You are allowed to grieve. If you can’t be honest with God, then it’s not a right relationship, much less a joyful one.

Joy is the fruit of hope and we only begin to hope when life is difficult. Usually the journey to joy requires us to pass through the valley of lament.

But even when you are in the valley, you can still look forward in hope to a time when God will wipe away every tear. You can rejoice in faith that life won’t always suck. Jesus is making all things new and he will redeem your loss in his way and his time.    

The joyful worship celebration envisioned by Moses, in Deuteronomy 12, is like a sign post pointing forward to the Messianic Banquet at the end of time, when those who love Jesus will be reunited with him in the greatest party the world has ever known.

Conclusion:

Many centuries after Moses, William Temple offered his vision of worship, which illuminates something of what Jesus meant when he talked about worshipping God in Spirit and in truth. William Temple writes…

Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose – and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable.                     

Father God, help us to worship you in Spirit and in truth, we pray. Amen.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • Why does Moses insist that Israel worship the Lord their God in a distinctive way? In what ways was Israel’s worship meant to differ from Canaanite worship? In what ways is Christian worship today (meant to be) distinctive from the prevailing culture?
  • What do you think Jesus meant when he talked about worshipping in the Spirit and in truth (in John 4)?  What might this mean for us today?
  • Why do we no longer need to sacrifice animals as part of our worship of God? What tangible things do you do to worship God? How do you worship God with your body?
  • How does the ancient practice of tithing reveal the generosity of God?
  • Discuss / reflect on the difference between joy and happiness. Where does your joy come from? What is it you hope for?
  • Make some time this week to reflect on William Temple’s vision of worship, then spend time in adoration of God.   

[1] Patrick Miller, Interpretation commentary on Deuteronomy, pages 131-132. 

Tawa Baptist

Prevention

Scripture: Deuteronomy 5:20; 7:25; Exodus 20:17; Matthew 6:19-24

Video Link: https://youtu.be/CtbHmRzQrW0

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Do not covet – it’s about prevention
  • Taking care of yourself
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Have you ever stood on the edge of a cliff and been tempted to take a peak over the side? It’s a pretty risky thing to do. You could slip and fall. You could be caught by a gust of wind and lose your balance. Or the ground on which you are standing may give way and take you with it. The smart thing to do is stay well away from the edge, then you eliminate the risk of falling.  

Today we continue our series in Deuteronomy. We are up to that part (in chapter 5) where Moses reiterates the ten commandments of Yahweh. This morning our focus is the last command, in verse 21, which can be summarised as you shall not covet.

The word covet means to desire strongly, yearn for or set your heart on something that belongs to someone else. Coveting, therefore, is about one’s inner life. It is not so much an action, but rather the thought and feeling (or the

motivation) that precedes the action.

Do not covet – it’s about prevention:

The command to not covet is like a fence at the top of the cliff which prevents you going anywhere near the edge. If you can keep the command to not covet, then you won’t come close to breaking any of the other commandments. Do not covet is that stitch in time that saves nine. It is that ounce of prevention that is better than a pound of cure.

The command to not covet requires us to take care of our heart; to pay attention to the workings of our inner life, our thoughts and feelings and desires. But before we get into taking care of our inner life, let’s look more closely at the actual wording that goes with the command to not covet.

In Deuteronomy 5, we read…   

21 “You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife.

You shall not set your desire on your neighbour’s house or land, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.”

As you know by now, the ten commandments were given twice in the Bible. Firstly, in Exodus 20, at Mount Sinai near the beginning of Israel’s time in the wilderness and then a second time, in Deuteronomy 5, nearly 40 years later when the people of Israel were preparing to enter the Promised Land.

Both versions are written from a patriarchal perspective and so they probably make us cringe a little bit today. But the wording reflects the reality of that time. Three to four thousand years ago men tended to be the ones in charge and women were generally subservient to men.

I don’t think God (or Moses) was meaning to exclude women with this commandment. Nor is this an endorsement of patriarchal culture.

To the contrary, the law was given to protect women and other vulnerable people, from abuse by those in power (and men held most of the power). If a man decided he wanted someone else’s wife or house or servant, it was usually the women and children who suffered the most.

So women are not excluded from this commandment. Translating this for our own contemporary context we would say that no one should covet.

We need to avoid a literalistic interpretation. The examples given in this commandment are not exhaustive, they are by way of illustration. Not many people own an ox or a donkey these days but if you are a farmer then you probably own a tractor (which is equivalent to an ox) and most of us own a car (which is equivalent to a donkey).    

When we put the Exodus version alongside the Deuteronomy version we notice, they are not exactly the same. In the Exodus version, wives are lumped together with houses and donkeys. But in Deuteronomy 5, wives come first and are treated separately from houses and livestock.

It appears like something happened those 40 years in the wilderness that changed the way men think.  

In Christian tradition, the Catholics and Lutherans have followed Deuteronomy and treated the injunction to not covet as two separate commandments. That is: you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife is the ninth commandment and you shall not set your desire on your neighbour’s stuff is the tenth commandment.  

The Protestant tradition has followed Exodus and lumped everything together, which lends itself to being misunderstood.

I prefer the Deuteronomy version and am treating wives separately from chattels. We dealt with the command to not covet your neighbour’s spouse a few weeks ago, when we talked about adultery and doing the Wordle on the train, so there is no need to cover that again today.

This morning’s message focuses more on the second part of Deuteronomy 5, verse 21, about not coveting your neighbour’s house and contents. If you don’t set your heart on your neighbour’s stuff you will avoid falling off the cliff edge of murder, adultery, theft and lying.

Although there is a direct connection between coveting and the other commandments, coveting is unique in that it is a secret sin. No one can witness you coveting, like they might see you stealing or hear you lying. Which means you can’t face legal proceedings or go to jail for coveting.

Yet this does not make coveting any less dangerous. If anything, the internal, hidden nature of coveting makes it more dangerous. With coveting the poison is inside you. It’s not like dirt on your hands which you can wash off. Coveting is more like sugar in your petrol tank; it wrecks your engine.

Coveting is insidious in that it undermines the foundation of our relationships, not just our relationship with our neighbour but also our relationship with God. Coveting can lead to idolatry, the worship of things God has made.

In Deuteronomy 7 we read:  25 The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it…  

In the context of Deuteronomy 7, Moses is instructing the Israelites to destroy Canaanite religion because it is like acid to the human soul and therefore detestable to God.

Jesus was well aware of the danger of coveting. He saw the connection between coveting and idolatry. In Matthew 6, Jesus warned against the dangers of setting your heart on earthly wealth. From verse 19 we read…

19 “Do not store up riches for yourselves here on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and robbers break in and steal. 20 Instead, store up riches for yourselves in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and robbers cannot break in and steal. 21 For your heart will always be where your riches are.

22 “The eyes are like a lamp for the body. If your eyes are sound, your whole body will be full of light; 23 but if your eyes are no good, your body will be in darkness. So if the light in you is darkness, how terribly dark it will be!

 24 “You cannot be a slave of two masters; you will hate one and love the other; you will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Jesus is warning against the dangers of greed and material wealth here. Although he doesn’t explicitly use the word ‘covet’ in these verses, it is implied by the little parable about the eyes being a lamp for the body. We tend to covet things with our eyes. We see it, we want it.

Jesus is speaking metaphorically. A person’s eyes, in this context, refer to that person’s perception of others. So the phrase, ‘if your eyes are sound’, means if your perception or your way of looking at others is generous, warm and open hearted, then your body will be full of light. You will have a right perspective and generally be happier, in other words.

But if your eyes are no good, that is: if you look at others with meanness of spirit or if you look at others with greedy or coveting eyes, thinking how can I take advantage of this person for my own ends, then you will be filled with darkness. You will lose perspective and become cynical, cold and suspicious of others.

Greed, coveting, love of money, all goes hand in hand with idolatry, with the worship of things God has made, things that are beneath us. And when we worship the things God has made (rather than God himself) we tend to devalue our neighbour who is made in God’s image.

Okay, so we have talked about what coveting is and how dangerous it is as a gateway to all sorts of evil. The purpose with the command to not covet is to prevent us from breaking any of the other commandments. How then can we avoid coveting?

Taking care of ourselves:

Well, four things you can do to take care of yourself and guard against coveting: Renew, Reflect, Remember and Relax. Renew your mind. Reflect on your true desires. Remember who you serve. Relax and enjoy what you have.

In Romans 12, Paul says: 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Renewing your mind is about thinking well. It’s about replacing the lies we tell ourselves with the truth.

For example, if the pattern of this world is, I must make lots of money and be rich in order to be secure, then renewing your mind means changing the script and replacing the lie with the truth, namely: Security comes through right relationships with others. Therefore, taking care of my relationships needs to be the priority.       

Or, if the pattern of this world is, I must be successful in the eyes of others in order to be accepted, then renewing your mind means changing the script and replacing the lie with the truth, namely: God accepts me in Christ. I need to be faithful. What other people think of me is none of my business. 

The trouble with the pattern of this world is that we don’t usually recognise it at first, because it is all we know. We often believe the lie to be true. What lies do you believe in? What truth do you need to replace these lies with?

Reflecting on your true desires is the second thing you can do to guard against coveting.  

Augustine wrote in his Confessions: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

Or, as Bono puts it, ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for’.

Sometimes we think we know what we want but when we get it, we are still dissatisfied, still hungry for more. Which tells us we didn’t really understand our true desire in the first place. Our desires are like an onion or a Russian doll, they have layers. 

For example, we might think we want a fourth and fifth glass of wine when what we really want is someone to love us. While the wine does numb the pain temporarily, no amount of alcohol can take away loneliness.

Rather than reacting to every desire that raises it head (like a game of whack a mole) we do better to press pause and reflect on what our true desire is, the deeper underlying desire.

Most of our desires are perfectly legitimate in themselves. The desire for intimacy, the desire for identity and belonging. The desire for our lives to have lasting significance. Nothing wrong with these. The problem is the way we might try to satisfy those desires.  

Take the desire for affection. Nothing wrong with wanting affection. But if we try to satisfy our desire for affection by pursuing someone else’s spouse, then people get hurt. Likewise, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be accepted. But if we try to satisfy our desire for acceptance by harming someone else’s reputation, then our belonging is based on a lie.

The point is, sometimes bad behaviour is driven by legitimate desires. Before we react to every little craving, we need to reflect on what it is we really want and find a better strategy for meeting those desires.    

For example: If you want to belong, build trust. If you want intimacy, find the right person to be vulnerable with. If you want your life to have meaning, love God and love your neighbour. If you want to be wise, listen more than you talk. If you want to be great, become the servant of all. If you want to be righteous, look to Jesus to justify you.        

Augustine believed the deepest desire of all, the hunger that drives every other hunger, is our desire to be reunited with God. Our heart (our inner life) is restless until it finds its rest in God. Jesus came to give us that rest. He came to reunite us with God.

For most of us that reunion with God is a slow train coming. Becoming a Christian doesn’t automatically mean the end of all wanting. God is faithful and gives us what we need to be sure. But he doesn’t always give us what we want. We have to wait for Jesus’ return before we can fully realise true rest from desire.

In the meantime, we do well to ask ourselves: what are the deeper desires driving my behaviour? What is it I really want? And, do I need better strategies for managing those desires?

The third thing you can do to avoid coveting is to remember who you serve. 

In Deuteronomy 5, as part of the Sabbath commandment, we read…        

15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. 

This verse (along with much of Deuteronomy) is an instruction to the people of Israel to remember who they serve. The Israelites no longer serve a tyrant like Pharaoh. Nor do they serve themselves. They serve the Lord God Almighty, who is both powerful and kind.

Yahweh set Israel free from Egypt in order to be his holy people. Likewise, Jesus has set us free from sin and death so that we can be God’s holy people too. We are not set free to do whatever we want. We are set free to serve God’s purpose.

Remembering who you serve is closely related to remembering who you are. In the gospels of Matthew & Luke we read how Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness.

The evil one did not tempt Jesus with obvious sins like murder or adultery. Satan appealed to Jesus’ desires by trying to entice Jesus to covet. ‘If you are the Son of God, satisfy your hunger by turning these stones into bread. Make a name for yourself by jumping off the temple. Get power for yourself by worshipping me.’

But Jesus wasn’t buying any of it. Jesus remembered who he was and who he served. Interestingly, the Scriptures Jesus used to resist Satan come from Deuteronomy chapters 6-8.

Where Israel failed in the wilderness, Jesus made good on their behalf. Where we fail in our times of testing, Jesus makes good on our behalf. And so we belong to Christ, we serve Jesus.

We remember who we are and who we serve by maintaining simple rhythms like daily Bible reading, giving thanks to God before every meal, spending quality time with other believers, and not letting ourselves become too busy but making space to be still.        

So the question is, what rhythms (or spiritual disciplines) do you maintain to remind yourself that you serve Jesus?

We are talking about how we take care of ourselves in order to avoid coveting. Renew your mind. Reflect on your true desires. Remember who you serve, and fourthly, relax, enjoy what you have.

God didn’t give us the ten commandments to make our lives more stressful or difficult. When applied properly, God’s Law supports human flourishing and indeed the flourishing of all creation.  

Distress is one of the hidden costs of coveting. Wanting what we can’t have creates a pressure in us. It puts us on edge. It robs us of our peace and joy. We are generally happier when we relax and enjoy what we already have, rather than chasing after something we can’t have.

In Mark 2, Jesus says: The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. We are not machines. God did not make us to stay ‘on’ all the time. The Lord provides one day off in seven for us to relax and enjoy what we have.

When we practice Sabbath, when we take time off to relax, we find that many of those desires which are unhelpful, evaporate, like the morning mist after sunrise. God’s law supports the flourishing of his creation.  

I wonder then, how do you relax? Do you practice Sabbath, taking one day off in seven. What is it you do for enjoyment?

Conclusion:

In Psalm 37 we read…

Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Much of what we set our heart on in this life doesn’t last. Houses, cars, career, status, reputation. These sorts of things are here today, gone tomorrow. But the Lord is forever.

Delighting yourself in the Lord is about taking pleasure in God himself. It’s about loving the giver more than his gifts. It’s about being mindful of God’s grace in the present and not longing for the past or worrying about the future.

Delighting in the Lord is the fence at the top of the cliff, preventing us from coveting. Delighting in the Lord renews our mind and puts us in touch with our true desires, most of all the desire to be close to God. Delighting in the Lord reminds us of who we serve and who we are. What’s more, delighting in the Lord enables us to relax and enjoy what we have.

Let us pray…

Father God, your ways are life to us. Forgive us for the times we pursue things we shouldn’t. Help us to think well and find our contentment in you. Through Jesus we pray. Amen.  

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading these Scriptures and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • In what sense is the command to not covet like a fence at the top of the cliff?
  • How does coveting affect our relationship with God? How does coveting affect our relationship with our neighbour? How does coveting affect us personally (internally)?
  • What does it mean to ‘renew your mind’? How do we go about renewing our mind? What lies do you believe in? What truth do you need to replace these lies?
  • How might we identify our true desires? What underlying desires are driving your behaviour at present? What strategies do you have for managing those desires?  Do you need some better strategies? 
  • Why did Jesus set us free? What rhythms (or spiritual disciplines) do you maintain to remind yourself that you serve Jesus? Are these rhythms an effective reminder? If not, what needs to change?
  • How do you relax? What do you enjoy? Make a list of the good things in your life. How might you best enjoy / celebrate these good things?

In Exodus 20 we read…

17 “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.”

Tawa Baptist

Honesty

Scripture: Deuteronomy 5:20; 19:15-19

Video Link: https://youtu.be/_3dB1FprMWo

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Honesty promotes justice in the court room
  • Honesty promotes trust in the neighbourhood
  • Honesty promotes humility in the heart  
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Let’s begin with a simple multi-choice question. When was the first time you can remember telling a lie? Were you: A. under the age of 10; B. over the age of 10; C. I have never told a lie; Or D. I can’t remember, it was too long ago.  

I expect most people would answer either A. under 10 or D. I can’t remember. If you answered C. (that you have never told a lie) then you are either Jesus or you are telling a porky. Lying is probably the easiest, most inclusive, all-age sin there is. Almost anyone can lie. And, eventually, everyone does.

Today we continue our series in Deuteronomy. We are up to that part (in chapter 5) where Moses reiterates the ten commandments of Yahweh. This morning our focus is the command, ‘You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour’, in verse 20.

The general aim with this commandment is to be honest and tell the truth. Honesty promotes justice in the courtroom, it promotes trust in the neighbourhood and being honest with ourselves promotes humility in the heart.

Honesty promotes justice in the courtroom:

In the context of the ten commandments, you shall not give false testimony is primarily about not lying in a court of law. Or not perverting the course of justice in other words.   

For society to function in a peaceful way there needs to be justice. And justice depends on people being honest and telling the truth. In the ancient world they didn’t have forensic science like we do. They weren’t able to check for finger prints or DNA and so eye witnesses were essential for providing evidence.

In Deuteronomy 19, verse 15, we read…

15 One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offense they may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

The requirement for two or three witnesses (whose testimonies agree) provided a safe guard against miscarriages of justice. However, this safeguard was not full proof. It was still possible for two or three dishonest people to conspire against an innocent third party. And so Deuteronomy 19 goes on to say…

16 If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse someone of a crime, 17 the two people involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time. 18 The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against a fellow Israelite, 19 then do to the false witness as that witness intended to do to the other party. 

We see a number of examples of false witnesses in the Scriptures. One such example is found in the book of Esther.

There we read how Haman trumped up false charges against Mordecai. Haman was so confident of his plot he constructed gallows in anticipation of Mordecai being found guilty. As it transpired, Haman’s false testimony was uncovered and Haman himself was hung on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai.

Perhaps the most famous example of people bearing false witness though was at the trial of Jesus. In Matthew 26 we read…

59 The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death. 60 But they did not find any [who could agree], though many false witnesses came forward.

Ironically, Jesus was put to death for giving truthful testimony about himself. When the high priest asked Jesus if he was the Christ, the Son of God, Jesus replied, “Yes, it is as you say.” No one in that court believed him, despite the evidence of his miracles, his fulfilment of Scripture and his followers.    

Okay, time for another multi-choice question. You don’t have to put your hand up for this one by the way. Simply consider what you might do. Here’s the scenario…

Your best friend was involved in a car crash but fled the scene before the police arrived so they could not test his blood for alcohol. You were seen with your friend at the pub the night of the crash but you were not in the car at the time. You are required to take the stand in court as a witness.

The prosecution asks if you saw your friend drinking the night of the crash. You answer ‘yes’. Then they ask you, how much was he drinking? You know that it was enough to put him over the limit but you don’t want to make things worse for your best mate. How do you answer?

Do you: A. tell the whole truth, it was four jugs of beer and two shots of tequila; B. fudge the truth to cover for him, it was only half a pint of beer; C. Lie by saying you can’t remember; Or D. remain silent and refuse to answer.

In this scenario you are not being tempted to get someone into trouble for something they haven’t done. You are being tempted to withhold the truth in order to protect a friend who is clearly in the wrong. Is it okay to do that?

Well, no. When Deuteronomy 5, verse 20, talks about giving ‘false’ testimony, the word false, means empty testimony. As Daniel Block explains, the concern is testimony that does not move the case forward, that hedges the truth or detracts from the pursuit of justice with misleading or trivial responses. [1]

In the context of a courtroom, the purpose with the command to not give false testimony is to ensure justice is done. Fudging the truth or leaving out crucial facts or pretending you can’t remember or saying nothing, are not allowed if those strategies derail the course of justice.

Okay, so we’ve talked about not giving false testimony in the context of formal legal proceedings. What about outside of a court of law. How does the command to not give false testimony apply in the neighbourhood? And by the neighbourhood we mean in the home, at school, in the work place, in your street, and so on.    

Honesty promotes trust in the neighbourhood:

In Leviticus 19 we read: Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not deceive one another.

And, jumping ahead to the New Testament, in Ephesians 4 we read: Each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbour… 

These verses are talking about being honest in our everyday relationships with the people in our neighbourhood. If the primary purpose of being honest in a court of law is to promote justice, then the primary purpose in being honest with our neighbours is to promote trust.

The air in the atmosphere we breathe is about 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and 1% other gases. As much as we need oxygen to survive, too much oxygen is harmful. In fact, breathing pure oxygen will kill you.

Honesty is like oxygen to the atmosphere of our relationships. We need honesty in our relationships. Honesty keeps trust alive. But too much honesty will kill the relationship. Honesty needs to be tempered with the nitrogen of discretion.

Discretion is not lying. Discretion is choosing when to speak and when to hold your tongue for the sake of the relationship; for the sake of trust.

For example, if you meet a friend at a café and as part of the conversation say, very loudly so everyone can hear, ‘how are your hemorrhoids?’ Or, ‘your breath smells really bad’. Or, ‘that dress makes you look fat’ Or, something else that might be honest but also embarrassing for them, then you will undermine trust and kill the friendship. There is such a thing as being too honest.

Being honest doesn’t give us a license to disclose other people’s business. In the context of the neighbourhood, honesty needs to be tempered with discretion, otherwise no one will trust you.

Imagine you are waiting by the coffee cart on the Main Road here in Tawa when one of the cool kids, someone quite successful and generally liked by everyone, starts talking with you while you are waiting for your morning fix. The conversation begins innocently enough but then takes a turn for the worse.

This popular person, who you admire, starts talking about another person’s failure behind their back. There may be some foundation to what they are saying but it is not entirely true and it certainly is not kind, much less anyone else’s business. How do you respond?

Do you: A. collude with them by agreeing; B. listen and say nothing; C. call them out (and correct them); or D. subtly change the topic of conversation.     

I guess most of us would like to think we had the courage to call them out and correct them, even though that might make us the target of their gossip with someone else. But I imagine most (if not all) of us have employed all four strategies at one point or another.

In 1st Corinthians 13, Paul describes the most excellent way, saying…

5 Love does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, 

Honesty can be a brutal thing, if it is not motivated by love. We may harm others with our words and then justify ourselves by saying, ‘I was just keeping it real’ or ‘I was only being honest’.  Yes, love rejoices with the truth. But that does not mean love is insensitive or that it takes pleasure in seeing people hurt.

The truth is too big for any of us to know. We don’t have the full picture and so we need to be honest with ourselves and admit the limits of our understanding. Our words need to be motivated by love and humility. We must be careful not to dishonour others with our words. We need to protect the reputation of others.

As a teacher, Robyn sometimes has kids coming to her telling tales. She poked her tongue out at me. Or he peed in the pool. There may be some truth to these tales but there isn’t much love.

Robyn has an acrostic she uses with the kids in her class. It spells the word THINK. (I’ve shared this with you before.) She tells her kids to THINK before they speak. Is it True? Is it Helpful? Is it Inspiring? Is it Necessary? And is it Kind? If it is true, helpful, inspiring, necessary and kind then it is worth saying.  

The apostle Paul summed it up in Ephesians 4 when he said…

Say only the good things people need to hear, that will really help them.

When our words are honest and kind, we foster trust in our relationships. Trust is the foundation really. Without trust there is nothing to build on and the neighbourhood collapses.

These days our neighbourhood is not just a physical place. Many of us also inhabit a virtual online neighbourhood. We live in the information age. There is so much data at our finger tips, on the internet. Unfortunately, not all of it is true. The recent pandemic has revealed the power of misinformation to mislead people and undermine trust.  

Jesus teaches us to be discerning in what we accept as true and what we filter out as false. In Matthew 7, Jesus says…

15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 

Jesus wants us to be discerning about what we accept as true because buying into a lie makes it harder to trust and easier to become cynical.

Okay, so we are talking about the importance of being honest. Honesty promotes justice in the courtroom, it promotes trust in the neighbourhood and being honest with ourselves promotes humility in the heart.

Honesty promotes humility in the heart:

Jesus had quite a bit to say about keeping our heart honest. Jesus was particularly tough on religious hypocrisy. A hypocrite is an actor, someone who gets by in life by pretending to be something they are not. Listen to some of the things Jesus said to the religious leaders’ faces, from the gospel of Luke…

39 Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 

41 But… be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.

46“And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.

An ignorant person might hear those words and think, Jesus is taking a shot at all professional clergy. But he’s not. Anyone can be a Pharisee. You don’t even have to be a believer to be like the religious leaders Jesus is describing here. Those words fit for anyone who is dishonest with themselves.  

Imagine you are in church singing a worship song. You are finding the song difficult to sing. Not because the music is complicated but because the words are pricking your conscience. All to Jesus, I surrender, all to thee I freely give. I will ever love and trust you, in your presence daily live. I surrender all…

You know in your heart that you are failing to live up to those words. It’s not that you have a sensitive conscience. In fact, your conscience hardly ever bothers you, which (truth be told) is how you like it.

But the Spirit is present, this particular day, and you know Jesus is putting his finger on something in your life, something you would rather not face. Perhaps some dodgey dealings at work or school. Or maybe you are cheating on your boyfriend or being violent with your wife or neglecting your children. 

Whatever it is, do you: A. ignore your conscience and sing louder; B. lip sync without actually singing the words; C. stop coming to church altogether; or D. put things right and return to church the next Sunday to sing with a clear conscience.

Hopefully we would all do D. put things right and sing with a clear conscience. Having said that, I’m all too aware that sometimes we human beings are tempted to use religion as a cloak of invisibility, to hide what’s really going on in our personal lives.

Now, I’m not suggesting we stop singing worship songs in church every time we do something wrong. If we did that, no one would ever be able to sing.

The point is we need to be honest with ourselves and with God. Other people can’t see into our hearts but God can. There is no fooling him. We don’t have to be perfect to call ourselves a Christian but nor can we fake it.

When we mess up we need to confess our wrong doing to the Lord, do what we can to put it right and continue following Jesus in faith, trusting ourselves to God’s grace, without pride or pretence. 

One of the ways we keep our heart honest is through the spiritual discipline of self-examination and confession. Confession is when you tell God (aloud) what you have done wrong. When confession is done well, it releases us from guilt and enables to walk humbly with God.

Trouble is, we don’t always do confession well. We may spend too much time examining our heart and become too critical of ourselves, not allowing any room for grace. Or we might go to the other extreme and charge through life without any self-awareness, leaving a trail of hurt people in our wake.     

When I was a teenager, I remember attending a church service. The guest speaker was talking about the value of confessing our sins to each other. Not wanting to be hypocrites, and perhaps also wanting to unburden their conscience, a number of people got up and confessed their deepest darkest secrets to the whole congregation.

In hindsight, I don’t think that was a good idea. While there is a place for accountability, perhaps with a mentor or in small groups, it doesn’t really work in a bigger gathering. Some people over shared and others didn’t share anything. The whole exercise just made people feel awkward or misunderstood and consequently more disconnected, which defeats the purpose of church.

Confession works best when done in the same context in which we committed the wrong doing. For example, if you lie to a colleague, one on one, then you put that right by confessing the truth to that colleague, one on one. You don’t need to tell the whole church what you did.

However, if you stand up in a church meeting and say something false or hurtful, then you put that right by admitting your mistake in a church meeting. Confession works best when done in the same context in which we committed the wrong doing.    

Conclusion:

We’ve talked this morning about the importance of honesty. Honesty promotes justice in the courtroom, it promotes trust in the neighbourhood and being honest with ourselves promotes humility in the heart.

But are there any circumstances when it is okay to lie? Well, if the purpose in being honest is to promote justice, trust and humility, then we may be forced to lie if telling the truth would undermine justice, trust and humility.

One last multi-choice question to illustrate what I mean. Imagine you live under a ruthless dictatorship, one in which the authorities are hell bent of eradicating anyone with red hair. The ruler of the country has lost his mind. People with even a hint of ginger in their beard are being hunted down and sent into exile on Stewart Island to shuck oysters.

The law is completely ridiculous. Having red hair is not a moral issue. There is no justice in this decree. It undermines human dignity, destroys trust and promotes bigotry and prejudice.

Do you: A. set up a secret hair salon in your basement to dye people’s hair black; B. Dye your own hair red in solidarity; C. lie to the authorities to protect your red headed neighbours; or D. report people with red hair to the police.

I think, in an extreme situation like that, lying to the authorities is (paradoxically) a more honest option than reporting red heads to the police.

(My apologies to people with red hair and anyone living on Stewart Island. I mean no disrespect. I’m 98% sure this scenario would never happen.)

Let us pray…

Father God, we thank you for Jesus who shows us what it means to hold grace and truth together. Help us to be honest with you, honest with our neighbours and honest with ourselves. May justice be upheld in our courts of law. May trust be strengthened in our neighbourhoods and may we walk humbly with you. Through Jesus we pray. Amen.  

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading these Scriptures and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • When was the first time you can remember telling a lie? What happened? How did you feel? Were you able to put it right?
  • Why is it important to be honest? What does honesty promote? 
  • Can you recall a time when someone lied to you? What happened? How did you feel? Was your ability to trust affected? If so, how? 
  • How might we handle a situation in which someone talks negatively to us about someone else behind their back? How do we maintain trust?
  • Is it ever okay to lie? If so, under what circumstances? What principles can we use to guide us?
  • How might we keep ourselves honest? What does healthy confession look like in practice? Make some time this week to examine your heart, confess your short fallings to God and make things right with others if necessary.

[1] Daniel Block, NIVAC Deuteronomy, pages 166-167.

Tawa Baptist

The Tabernacle – by Peter Barnett

The Tabernacle – What is it telling us? (by Peter Barnett)

Exodus 25 – 29

My wife Patricia and I sometimes go to the movies at the Lighthouse at Pauatahanui. We like to go on a Wednesday as Gold Card holders can get a free coffee. Before the start of the movie proper we would see “Trailers” which are snatches of upcoming movies. These trailers give a glimpse of what a movie is about. We don’t see the whole movie but just enough to give an idea of the story and of course to gain our interest.  

In a similar way the Tabernacle of the Old Testament gives us a glimpse of how God reached out to Israel and ultimately to humankind. 

In recent weeks Will has been going through the Ten Commandments which, as you know, were given to the people of Israel by God in their wanderings in the wilderness. The wanderings of Israel for forty years in the wilderness is a well-known story. They had become a sizable group of people by the time Moses led them out of Egypt. There is some conjecture as to how many people there were but there were enough to cause Pharaoh concern. 

God not only gave the Ten Commandments but quite a number of other socio-economic directions and regulations. There were laws on property, inheritance, marriage and divorce, food laws and so on. Amongst all these directions was information for building a Tabernacle. The Tabernacle in all its detail was in fact designed by God Himself. 

Dimensions of the tabernacle are written down in our Bible in considerable detail so we have a good idea of what the tabernacle must have looked like.

The tabernacle was a simple stand-alone building. It consisted of an outer courtyard area and was surrounded by a fence covered with linen. This outer fence was 50 cubits wide and 100 cubits long or 23 metres x46 metres. The fence was five cubits high – or 2.3 metres high. 

God wanted the Tabernacle constructed because He wanted to dwell amongst the People of Israel. The word Tabernacle means “Place of Dwelling”. It was at the divine initiative God was to dwell amongst His people.   Up until that time the Bible tells us that God would walk and talk with people but He did not “dwell” with them. 

As the Israelites were on the move constantly the Tabernacle had to be portable. It was a kind of a tent. Every time they pitched their tents the tabernacle was erected in a central place in the camp. That way God’s presence was always near and visible. Later when the Israelites eventually settled in the land of Canaan they would build a permanent temple in Jerusalem. It is thought the Tabernacle of Moses was in use for around 440 years up until the time Solomon built his Temple in Jerusalem. 

The Old Testament Tabernacle was a highly symbolic construction. It was a demonstration of God reaching out to humankind. It also foretold of Jesus’ sacrifice and gave a glimpse of what Jesus was to do for us. The Bible talks of Jesus who “Tabernacled amongst us”. He dwelt with humankind and connected with humankind. He was Emmanuel – God with us. 

The tabernacle was a place where numerous rituals of sacrifice took place. The performance of the various rituals gave access to God but did not and could not deal with the sin dilemma permanently. They were only a temporary fix until Christ came. 

There was a fenced off area with the altar where the sacrifices took place. There was also the laver or basin where the priests washed their hands and feet as part of the sacrificial ceremony. You will also notice the cattle beast being prepared for sacrifice. 

The large tent is known as the Holy Place. Inside this tent is the Altar of Incense and the Candlestick with the distinctive seven branches. 

There were three beautifully coloured curtains in the tabernacle. The first one was at the gate of the entrance into the tabernacle just before the bronze altar; the second was at the door through which the priest gained entrance into the Holy Place; and the third was before the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies. These three curtains were placed strategically in the tabernacle, each one made of fine-twined linen into which were twisted threads of purple, blue, and scarlet.

Within the Holy Place was a separate section known as the Holy of Holies. The furniture in the Holy of Holies was covered in gold. The Holy of Holies was divided from the Holy Place by a heavy thick veil or curtain. There was no opening in the veil so the High Priest had to climb under the veil to enter the Holy of Holies. 

It was here that the High Priest met with God once a year. The priest would first make a sacrifice for his own sins and then a further sacrifice for the sins of the people. The blood of the sacrifice would be sprinkled on the Ark of the Covenant as an offering to the Lord for the sins of the people. This reminds us that we can only come to God through the shedding of Christ’s blood. 

Covers of the Tabernacle

The Holy Place was covered with four layers. Each layer spoke of some aspect of our relationship with God. 

The Layers of the Coverings

1. The inner one was made of white linen speaking of holiness. 

2. The next layer was goat’s hair, dyed purple, speaking of royalty. Goats hair was used in those days for tent making. 

3. The next was ram’s skin, dyed red, speaking of the blood of the sacrifices and the ultimate sacrifice of Christ that would be shed on the cross.

4. The outer most layer was porpoise or dolphin skin although some Bible translations say badger skin. 

Altar of Burnt Offering 

The Altar of Burnt Offering was made of acacia wood overlaid with brass. The fire on the Altar was not allowed to go out but burned continually. The law of Moses set out the sacrifices to be offered here, foreshadowing the Saviour and His “great and last sacrifice”. Sacrifice can also symbolise our repentance—giving up our sins and offering a broken heart and contrite spirit 

Laver or Basin for washing

It was here that the priests washed their hands and feet in preparation for the ritual sacrifices. If a priest did not wash according to the law it could imperil his life. So it was important that the priest observed the law very carefully. The Laver was made of bronze. This bronze was obtained from the women of the Israelites in the form of mirrors. The women gave their bronze mirrors which were used in the manufacture of the Laver. 

Altar of Incense

This altar was used by the priests to burn incense each morning and night before the veil. The Altar of Incense was made of acacia wood and overlaid with gold. Incense is used to represent prayers ascending to heaven. 

Table of Shewbread

The Table of Shewbread was made of acacia wood overlaid with gold. Twelve loaves of unleavened bread, one for each of the tribes of Israel, were placed each Sabbath on the table of shewbread, a word meaning “bread of the presence” in Hebrew. The loaves were eaten in the holy place by the priests every Sabbath as “an everlasting covenant between God and Israel” reminding them of the time when God fed them in the wilderness. Wine was also placed on the Table and reminded them of the blood of the covenant. So each time we take communion we are participating in a very long established practice of bread and wine which started in the time of Moses and the Tabernacle through to the disciples at the Last Supper and to here in Tawa Baptist Church. 

The Lampstand

The Candlestick or Lampstand was also made of gold. Seven lamps burned pure olive oil, providing light to the holy place. 

Ark of the Covenant 

The Holy of Holies, the innermost compartment, held the Ark of the Covenant. This Ark was a wooden chest overlaid with gold. It held the two tablets of the law which were given by God to Moses. It also held the pot of manna which was the food God provided in the wilderness and the rod of Aaron that budded. This was known as the mercy seat and it had a covering of pure gold and was overshadowed by two angelic figures called cherubim. It was at this mercy seat God met with His people on the basis of shed blood.

For hundreds of years the Israelites observed the tabernacle rituals according to what the Lord required. Sometimes more zealously than others. The priests and High Priests faithfully observed the laws. There were times of course when they strayed from their religious obligations. All this was done so as to maintain their relationship with the Lord and to hear what He said.

God who dwelt in the Tabernacle now dwells in us by His Spirit. This is repeatedly confirmed by Paul and the other apostles. They went to great pains to point out that God at one time was regarded as dwelling in the Tabernacle and later the Temple but now dwells in each of us. We are living temples of God. 

And so we have an empty cross. The veil of the Holy of Holies has been torn from top to bottom. This tells us that all the requirements of the law have been satisfied in Christ. He has made the required sacrifice and shed His blood. He has given His body. He has satisfied all the demands of the law. But death could not hold Him as He has risen and is alive forever more. 

Hebrews 10:19-22 Therefore brothers and sisters since we have confidence to enter the most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, His body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

Tawa Baptist

God Never Changes – by Neville

Changeless God in a changing world

Neville Gardner 2 Oct 2022

You’ve got me as a speaker today, and Peter next Sunday, because Will is taking a short break.

He gets a change that will refresh him.

I get a change that has challenged me.

You get a change that – well, I don’t know what you’ll get from it!

Don’t worry, things will be back to normal in a couple of weeks.

Not all change is so short-lived, or so easy to cope with.

My wife Nicky and I have recently been looking to replace our 18 year old car. When I got in a new car for a test drive the other day, about the only things I recognised were the steering wheel and the seats. The salesman assured me that he’d “even taught his granny” how to use the computer touchscreen.

New technology, as we all know, can have upsides and downsides. Our new car will be safer, cheaper to run, quieter and better for the environment. It will take some effort to learn how to use all the new features, or how to turn them off, but I’m sure we’ll get used to the change in time. Actually, I can hardly wait for the new car to arrive.

We live in a world in which few things don’t change. Each of you will have experienced changes that have affected you in different ways. I’m going to read out a list of changes – for each one I’d like you to think of an example that relates to your own experiences.

A change that was easy to cope with . . . a change that was unsettling or damaging.

A change that affected lots of people . . . a change that affected just you.

A change you caused to happen . . . a change you had no control over.

Our bodies undergo physical changes as we grow up and grow old. Our minds and characters can change too. We need to cope with changes to health and relationships, school and jobs, family and friends, finances and the environment and so on – the list is endless.

Fortunately, this endless list of changes does not include God. “For I am the Lord, I do not change.” we are told in Malachi 3:6. Which is good news, when you remember that He’s in control of everything. God doesn’t have moods, he doesn’t have good days and bad days, you can’t accuse him of ‘not being a morning person’. He keeps his promises and if he tells us what he wants us to do one day, he doesn’t change his mind the next.

God never changes.

Or I can say GOD never changes, or I can say God NEVER changes – that puts slightly different meanings on the phrase.

Saying GOD never changes, implies that everything else does.

God created change, but he is unchanging himself.

1 Samuel 15:29 tells us that “Israel’s majestic God does not lie or change his mind. He is not a man – he does not change his mind.”

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end.

Lamentations 3:22 (English Standard Version).

When God created the world, one of the first things he did was to create light and changed night into day in a regular cycle. That was followed by a world of changing seasons, weather, mountains, seas and rivers. He also created people, with bodies that age and die, and natures that change.

God encourages us to change. At some time in our lives, He offers us the chance to make a life-changing choice. For me, his ‘believe in me’ call didn’t arrive until I was about 30 years old. It will have been different for each of you. Making the decision to accept Jesus certainly made a big change to my life – not least because within a year I had moved to live in New Zealand and was married. Both of which, I hasten add, I think of as good changes!

When we believe in God, we ask Him to keep on changing us, in ways that will bring us closer to Him through Jesus. There’s a song we sing sometimes that includes the lines:

Change my heart oh God

Make it ever true.

Change my heart oh God

May I be like you.

You are the potter,

I am the clay.

Mould be and make me,

This is what I pray.

God NEVER changes

Psalm 102: 25 and 27 say “O Lord, you live for ever. Long ago you created the earth, and with your own hands you made the heavens. They will disappear, but you will remain.”

There has never been, and will never be, a time without God. And through all of his existence he has not, and will not, change.

The God that we serve today is exactly the same as the God who created the world. He is the same God who promised Moses that he would save his people. He is the same today as when he accepted Jesus’ sacrifice for us. He will be exactly the same when our world ends.

As you read the Bible, you meet a God who at times seems angry, or controlling, or loving. But he is not changeable – what we encounter is a loving, merciful and just God who is dealing with sinful people in all kinds of situations.

He treats people something like parents treat their children:

If a child obeys their parents, the parents show pleasure

If a child disobeys their parents, they may face less than pleasing consequences

If a child needs help, they can ask their parents for guidance

If a child is hurting, their parents show compassion.

That’s how God treats his people.

So what is it about God that doesn’t change?

His character never changes

God is always good, wise, just, truthful, gracious, loving, merciful, faithful, patient, and much more. None of these characters will ever change. He is perfect, so he can’t get any better, and he can’t get worse.

His purposes never change

Psalm 33:11 says “But his plans endure for ever; his purposes last eternally.”

God’s purposes for Jesus will not change.

Jesus will always be our saviour – Hebrews 13:8 tells us that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever.”

God’s plans for everyone who accepts Jesus as their saviour will not change.

John 14: 6 says “Jesus answered him “I am the way, the truth, and the life; No one goes to the Father except through me.””

Hebrews 7:24-25 says “But Jesus lives on for ever, and his work as priest does not pass on to someone else. And so he is able, now and always, to save those who come to God through him, because he lives for ever to plead with God for them.”

God’s plans for those who choose sin instead of Jesus never change.

John 3:36 says “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not have eternal life, but will remain under God’s punishment.”

God has a plan for my life. He’s got one for each of you too. He’ll do everything he can to make sure his plan unfolds perfectly, as long as we stick with God.

So what does God’s unchangeability mean to us?

Because we can be certain that God never changes, we can trust all his promises.

We can trust him completely. And Jesus will always save and protect those who trust in him.

Therefore, we have no cause to fear the future.

Because God never changes, we can be confident when we pray to him.

He will always listen to our prayers, at any time, under any circumstances – not just sometimes.

1 John 5:14-15 says “We have courage in God’s presence, because we are sure that he hears us if we ask him for anything that is according to his will. He hears us whenever we ask him; and since we know this is true, we know also that he gives us what we ask from him.”

Some people may ask how, if he never changes, God can keep up in a changing world. How can he stay relevant?

Well, I think he can stay relevant precisely because he doesn’t change. God’s purposes never change, we will always need salvation, and Jesus is always there to give it. Our challenge is to remember that no matter how much society changes, we will always need to try and understand God’s purpose.

As Christians, we can help communicate God’s relevance using language and actions that each new generation understands. Daryl and his team of leaders do that all the time, with the Bus Tour of the coming week being a great example. Will is currently preaching a series of sermons that interprets the 10 commandments for our modern world.

I was watching the funeral of Queen Elizabeth the other day, and I was struck by the old-fashioned language used in the service, such as liveth, thou knowest and so on. I presume it was from the King James Bible, first published in 1611.

Because we are having communion soon, I thought I’d read you something from a little book called A Companion to the Altar, published for the Church of England in about 1790– that’s 232 years ago.

It’s purely coincidental that this old paper and leather book is the same size as my glass, plastic and metal mobile phone.

Question: What is required of them who come to the Lord’s Supper?

Answer: To examine themselves whether they repent them truly of their former sins; steadfastly purposing to lead a new life; have lively faith in God’s mercy through Christ, with thankful remembrance of his death, and to be in charity with all men.

The meaning is still relevant, that’s still a good way to prepare for communion, but the language isn’t what we’d use today. Fortunately, as languages change, new translations of the Bible keep God’s word accessible to new generations of readers.

As well as the language we use in church changing over time, so have styles of worship.

Many of you will have attended other churches at some time, and will be aware that the drive to make Christianity ‘relevant’ in modern times involves change that doesn’t always sit easily with older generations. This change may be good for some, not so good for others.

One person who questioned his own response to such changes was the late Jack McFadyen. Some of you will remember when he was minister here in the mid 1970s. I knew Jack a long time after that, when he was attending a church in a different city. I’ll close by reading what Jack wrote about his experience of change in that church – it is not referring to this church. The piece is called “Tomorrow’s Church”:

Lord, the modern church isn’t the one I used to know.

We felt safe then with familiar hymns and dignified people leading our worship.

But it isn’t like that anymore. It’s as though something has been taken away from me.

The minister isn’t the worship leader anymore – anyone can do it and sometimes, it’s less of a service than a performance.

The music is foreign to me and the words seem shallow.

They speak of you and your kingdom in a way that sounds cheap.

Have I got it wrong Lord?

Can the church I see survive the modern world? I wonder.

Then, Lord, it seems so clear to me. I do have it wrong.

These young people are tomorrow’s church and they have to speak to tomorrow’s world. They’re on the same wavelength as today’s culture and tomorrow’s – and I’m not.

No, Lord, the church won’t die at their hands, it would die at mine.

No one will want a faith whose culture belongs to yesterday.

It has to be relevant to now and beyond – with music and dress and informality and language and the whole new culture of their generation.

So what do I do about it Lord? I think I know.

I will be grateful that there will be a church of tomorrow because there are people who seem relevant to a changing world and they will speak of Jesus in music and story in the idiom of their day.

Lord, thank you for the church of today that assures me that we will have a church of tomorrow.

Questions for study or reflection:

How was your childhood different to that of today’s children?

In what ways do think it was better?

In what ways do modern children have things better?

The sermon mentions that God is always good, wise, just, truthful, gracious, loving, merciful, faithful, patient.

What other aspects of God’s character do not change?

What does the fact that God never changes mean to you?

What are some of the ways that all ages of people can be catered for in a church service?

Tawa Baptist

Security

Scriptures: Deuteronomy 5:19; 19:14; 23:15-16, 19-20, 24-25; 24:6-7, 10-15, 19-22; 25:13-16 and 1st King 21

Video Link: https://youtu.be/voWPWYrYbm0

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Generosity, not greed
  • Security, not anxiety
  • Trust, not threat
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

When I was growing up in the 1970’s people didn’t lock their house during the day. You trusted your neighbours and complete strangers for that matter. If you popped down to the dairy to pick up a bottle of milk, you could leave the keys in your car, with the engine running, and not give it a second thought. You felt safe, like no one was going to pinch your stuff.

It’s not like that now. Almost every week we hear reports of ram raids and smash and grab crimes. Just two weeks ago I noticed a $200 charge on our credit card for something we had not purchased. Theft through the internet. We quickly cancelled the card to stop any further loss.

Many of you have got rid of your landline phones, partly because we use cell-phones now but also because many of the calls we get on our landline are scam artists, trying to weedle their way in our bank account.

It used to make me angry, especially when I thought of someone more vulnerable being taken advantage of. But then I thought, how desperate must someone be if they are having to resort to committing fraud for a living.

Even the post is suspect now. You take a risk sending anything of value in the mail. A number of times we’ve had things going ‘missing’ in the post.   

All these nasty little experiences breed cynicism and anxiety, undermining our sense of security and our ability to trust.

Today we continue our series in Deuteronomy. We are up to that part (in chapter 5) where Moses reiterates the ten commandments or the ten words of Yahweh. This morning our focus is the command, ‘You shall not steal’, in verse 19.

You shall not steal is perhaps one of the broadest commandments. It covers a wide range of activity. On the face of it, you shall not steal affirms the right to own personal property and provides protection for one’s material assets.

When we look at Deuteronomy as whole we get the sense that, you shall not steal is about fostering trust between people. It’s about promoting security in the neighbourhood. The kingdom of God is to be a place of generosity.

Generosity not greed, security not anxiety and trust not threat, this is the kaupapa or the purpose with the command not to steal.

Moses gives heaps of examples of how, you shall not steal, applies in daily life. Let’s start with land. The right use of land has to do with generosity. All too often human greed gets in the way.  

Generosity, not greed:

In Deuteronomy 19 we read: 14 Do not move your neighbour’s boundary stone set up by your predecessors in the inheritance you receive in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess.

To move a boundary stone is to take land that does not belong to you. These days moving your neighbour’s boundary stone would equate to building a fence in the wrong place, so as to disadvantage your neighbour. In ancient Israel moving a boundary stone reduced your neighbour’s capacity for growing food.

Worse than this though, it was an offence against God. You see, land for the ancient Israelites, was not privately owned by individuals. Land is owned by God.

The Lord allocated portions of the Promised Land of Canaan to the various tribes of Israel. Each tribe and clan and family were to act like kaitiaki or guardians, caretakers of the land entrusted to their care. The section of land you were responsible for was to stay in your family and be passed down from generation to generation.

You could use your allocation of land to graze your sheep or grow your grain but you could never sell the land. If a family fell on hard times they could lease their land, for a specified period of time, to someone else from their tribe (ideally a close relative) but they could never permanently sell it.

As a safe guard, once every 50 years, the allocations of land were to be returned to the original family holdings.

In first Kings chapter 19, we read how king Ahab (arguably the most evil king Israel ever had) wanted to buy Naboth’s vineyard so he could grow vegetables. Ahab basically told Naboth to name his price.

Naboth, who was a regular citizen and also a God fearing man, said ‘no’ to king Ahab. ‘God forbid’ that I ever sell my land to anyone. In Naboth’s mind, Ahab was essentially trying to bribe him to move a boundary stone.

Ahab started sulking around the palace and so his wife, Jezebel, arranged to have Naboth killed so that Ahab could seize Naboth’s field. God responded by sending the prophet Elijah to pronounce judgement on Ahab and Jezebel.

We might wonder how this story applies to us in our world today, because we buy and sell land all the time.

Well, the situation of ancient Israel is not exactly the same as contemporary New Zealand. I don’t think we should interpret the law of Moses to be saying we can’t buy and sell land ever. Selling your house to buy a new one is simply a practical necessity in the world in which we live today.

We need to look deeper than the letter of the law in order to find its spirit. The purpose (or kaupapa) of the law is generosity not greed. The land is one of God’s generous gifts to us. It is part of God’s hospitality to humanity. If we misuse the land for our own selfish gain, then we are essentially treating God’s generosity with contempt. We are stealing from God.

In practical terms, not moving your neighbour’s boundary stone, means people should not be pushed off their land. Big business interests need to give way to people’s welfare. In particular, the real estate of indigenous people needs to be respected and restored where it has been stolen.   

We do well to think of ourselves as caretakers of the land and of our neighbours. With this in view, the idea of protecting fertile land, so it cannot be turned into housing or carparks but rather used to grow crops, is a sensible one. 

The command to not steal also applies to paying a fair price for things. If land is being sold under a mortgagee sale, that is no excuse to drive the price lower in order to get it for a steal (as the saying goes). As believers we need to pay what it is worth. That is what it means to be generous and not greedy.

So, generally speaking, as long as no one is being taken advantage of, it’s okay to buy and sell land in New Zealand today. In any property transaction though, we need to be thinking of how that transaction will affect others.

For Christians, the Promised Land of Canaan is a symbol or a metaphor for the Kingdom of God. Through faith in Jesus we get a share in God’s kingdom. As believers in Christ we are meant to be more attached to Jesus than we are to land. God is our eternal home, our place to belong.

So, not moving a boundary stone (in a spiritual sense) means not abandoning our faith in Jesus. It means not selling out for some temporary short term gain. It means staying loyal to God, like Naboth did.      

Security, not anxiety:

Closely related to this principle of generosity is the idea of security. In Deuteronomy 23 we read…

24 If you enter your neighbour’s vineyard, you may eat all the grapes you want, but do not put any in your basket. 25 If you enter your neighbour’s grain field, you may pick kernels with your hands, but you must not put a sickle to their standing grain.

These verses help us to see where the line is drawn between reasonable use and theft. The spirit of the law here is to encourage land owners to be generous, not stingy. At the same time, the law provides a measure of food security for the poor. Generosity and security are held together in these verses.  

In a by-gone era people who were starving in Europe got sent to jail (or to Australia) for stealing a loaf of bread or a handful of potatoes. This kind of hard line punishment against the poor, who are already in a vulnerable position, is not condoned by the Bible. 

That said, I don’t think you can help yourself to grapes and apples when you are walking through the fresh produce section of the supermarket.

It is Moses’ intention to promote security, not anxiety. In Deuteronomy 24 we find another example of food security…

19 When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 

The Lord Almighty (Yahweh) was generous to his people up front, without them having to do anything to earn his favour. The farmers were to pay Yahweh’s generosity forward by leaving plenty of produce in the field for the poor to collect. Boaz famously did this for Ruth.     

I guess we do something similar when we leave garage sale items outside for the wider community to help themselves to.

When the principles of generosity and security are practiced, the poor do not need to be anxious. Of course, being poor or in need is not the only cause of stealing. Some people will steal anything, without any good reason.

Here, at church, we’ve had brass door latches taken, small shrubs stolen out of the garden and copper pinched off the roof. I’m not sure why people would steal from a church? What I do know is that the cost of those thefts was far greater than the value of the items stolen.

Quite apart from the physical damage burglars do to a building, on forcing entry, there is also the damage a burglary does to one’s soul. I’m talking about the erosion of trust, the heightened anxiety you might experience going into an empty building at night and that feeling of being violated in some way.

Thieves don’t just take your stuff; they can potentially rob you of your peace of mind. Who wants to live in a society where you are always looking over your shoulder, always second guessing your neighbour’s motivation?   

By the same token, when someone takes care of your stuff, it has a restorative effect on your soul. It helps you regain some capacity to trust. It makes you feel more positively connected, more at home in the neighbourhood.

In Deuteronomy 22, we read…

If you see your fellow Israelite’s ox or sheep straying, do not ignore it but be sure to take it back to its owner… 

It is not enough simply to avoid stealing. We need to actively protect our neighbour’s stuff. This is about being your brother (or sister’s) keeper. It’s about providing security and reducing anxiety in the neighbourhood.

Probably the worst kind of theft is kidnapping. Taking another human being against their will in order to exploit them in some way. This is also known as people trafficking or slavery.

Literally hundreds of thousands of people are trafficked throughout the world each year. Some are forced into the sex trade and others are made to do manual labour for next to nothing. People trafficking is revolting to God.  

In the case of stolen goods, the law of Moses stipulates that what was stolen be replaced at least two fold. But for the one who steals other people, the prescribed punishment is death. That is how serious it is.   

I don’t expect anyone here is a slave trader as such but we have probably all purchased an item of clothing made by an exploited worker at some point. Perhaps the least any of us can do is buy fair trade goods whenever we can.

The problem is we are disconnected from the supply chain. So it is often impossible to know if we are making ethical purchases.

The slave trade is the opposite of God’s law. Kidnapping for exploitation is greed in an extreme form. It threatens the life of those who are enslaved and it creates anxiety in those who wish to do the right thing.

No one is beyond God’s redemption though. Although Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, Joseph was (in the end) able to forgive his brothers saying: What you intended for harm, God intended for good.    

Trust, not threat:  

Okay, so the purpose of God’s command to not steal is to encourage generosity not greed, to promote security not anxiety and to foster trust not threat within the neighbourhood.

Poverty was a real threat for some in ancient Israel. God’s concern and practical care for the poor is seen again and again in Deuteronomy.

For example, in chapter 24, verses 14-15, we read: 14 Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy… 15 Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it.

Sometimes the rich and middle class don’t have too many clues about how the poor live day to day. We may be completely unaware of the realities our neighbours face. God’s law requires us to put ourselves in other people’s shoes and consider things from their perspective.

We need to be thinking, how can I promote security in my neighbourhood? How can I alleviate my neighbour’s anxiety? How can I promote trust? Paying a fair rate in a timely way helps with all three.   

Sometimes, when it is difficult to make ends meet, people may be forced to borrow money. The law of Moses prohibited charging interest on loans to fellow Israelites, although they could charge interest to foreigners.

This might seem like a double standard to us but in all likelihood the foreigners Moses had in mind here were probably not poor. They might be merchants who bought and sold goods for profit. 

So the distinction is between commercial loans and compassionate loans. It is okay to charge a reasonable rate of interest on commercial loans because the borrower is not hard up and they are using your money to make a profit.

But it’s not okay to charge interest on compassionate loans to the poor because that would be profiting from someone else’s misfortune. That would be like stealing from the poor.

A compassionate loan lets people keep their dignity because they are going to pay it back, it’s not charity. At the same time, an interest free loan is generous not greedy. It promotes security and reduces anxiety in the neighbourhood.

Whether the lending is commercial or compassionate, these verses warn against loan sharking and charging unfair rates of interest.

But there is also an encouragement, for those who can afford it, to offer small interest free loans to help family members or fellow believers who are in need. Of course, common sense dictates that you should never lend more than you can afford to lose.       

In verse 6, of Deuteronomy 24, Moses talks about security for debt and how lenders are to relate with those who have borrowed from them. That is, in a trusting way, not in a threatening way. Moses says…

6 Do not take a pair of millstones—not even the upper one—as security for a debt, because that would be taking a person’s livelihood as security.

And, in verses 12-13 we read:12 If the neighbour is poor, do not go to sleep with their pledge in your possession. 13 Return their cloak by sunset so that your neighbour may sleep in it… 

To take someone’s millstone as security for a debt was like taking their fry pan or their bread mixer. It was a threatening thing to do, because without a millstone the poor borrower couldn’t make bread.

Taking a poor man’s cloak as pledge was also a threatening thing to do. Without their cloak they might be too cold to sleep at night.

Moses wants to prevent the haves from intimidating the have nots. He wants people to use their power (their money) to help the poor. This requires lenders to trust God and not threaten people by taking things that are vital for their survival.

Yes, there will be times when you lend to someone and they won’t repay you. Nevertheless, God will act as guarantor for the financially vulnerable. If you loan money in good faith to help someone in need and they fail to repay you, the Lord will see that and credit it to you as a righteous act.

Trust, not threat is the purpose or the kaupapa at work in the law here.  

Another form of theft (which undermines trust) is the use of dishonest weights. Scales that disadvantage the buyer. In Deuteronomy 25, Moses says: 15 You must have accurate and honest weights and measures… 16 For the Lord your God detests anyone who deals dishonestly.

In today’s terms that means more than just having accurate scales. It means not winding the odometer back when selling a second hand car. It means not misleading people about the discount they are getting by inflating the retail price. It means not skimping on the meat in a steak and cheese pie. It means not pumping chickens with water to make them heavier. It means being honest with nutritional information on labels.   

Honest weights support trust. Dishonest weights threaten trust. 

Conclusion:

This morning we have heard how the command not to steal applies in a variety of areas of life. The purpose with this command is to promote generosity and discourage greed. The intention is to create a sense of security in the neighbourhood and reduce anxiety. You shall not steal is also about fostering trust between people and preventing threat.

When we look at the life and ministry of Jesus, we notice the Lord was not really that attached to material possessions. His main concern was for eternal life with God the Father. Following this train of thought, our greatest love needs to Jesus, for it is in and through Christ that we have eternal life with God. 

When we are more attached to Jesus than things like money, cars, clothes, houses and furniture, then material possessions will hold less sway over us. It’s not that material things are bad. They are useful and we still need them in this world. But at the end of the day we will lose all that stuff anyway. You can’t take it with you. But nothing invested in God’s kingdom is ever lost.

Let us pray…

Gracious God, thank you for your generosity to us. May we be generous like you. Forgive us for the times we have threatened the poor, through our own ignorance and self-interest. Forgive those who have stolen our stuff, robbed our peace of mind and undermined our trust. Holy Spirit, strengthen our attachment to Jesus we pray. Amen.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading these Scriptures and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • What was the world like when you were growing up as a child? How is it different today?
  • Have you been through the experience of being robbed? What happened? How did you feel / respond? Conversely, have you ever stolen from others? Why did you do this? How did stealing affect you?
  • How might the command not to move your neighbour’s boundary stone apply to us today?
  • In what ways did the law of Moses provide security for the poor? What can we do to strengthen security and reduce anxiety in our neighbourhoods today?
  • Why is the slave trade (kidnapping) so offensive to God?  When is it okay to charge interest on loans and when is it not okay?
  • What practical things can we do to strengthen our attachment to Jesus?