Epiphany 6 February 13, 2011

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Dear people of St Paul,
Moses was delivering his last sermon. He had served the people of Israel as their pastor and teacher, as their spiritual guide and mentor, for years. He led them through times of victory and times of defeat. He led them across the bed of the ocean floor and through the wilderness. He heard their gripes and complaints. He delivered to them God’s forgiveness. He even prayed for them to God so that God would not destroy them when they went back to worshipping their former gods from Egypt. And now, Moses, nearing the moment of his death had one more message, one more sermon to deliver.
You are God’s people. He rescued you from slavery. He set you free. He promised you a land flowing with milk and honey for you to call home, and he gave you his covenant. His promise to be with you and protect you.
Now it’s time to make a choice. You have a choice to make. The covenant and law of God, (and with that comes life); or sin and the foolish ways of the world, (and, by the way, with that comes death). Choose the good. Choose life. Don’t make the wrong choice.
May we today take that same message to heart.
Just as much as God rescued the Israelites from slavery, so has he rescued us. You and I were born slaves to our own sin, slaves to our own guilt, slaves to the devil. But God called us out of that slavery. Just as he sent Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, the Lord sent His Spirit to call us from our slavery to sin through faith in Jesus. Just as the Lord put to death the task masters of the Israelites by drowning them in the Red Sea, he has put to death our taskmasters of the flesh and the devil, drowning them in the water of Baptism. Just as he brought them to a promised land of great blessing, he has brought us to an eternal inheritance of blessing as we live in his kingdom and on into eternity. God had blessed the Israelites, we have all those blessings and more!
And so Moses’ sermon this day preaches to us. Choose. Choose whom you will serve. Will it be the old ways of sin? Will it be the old ways that lead you to death? Or will it be the new way of life and salvation.
We know the choice we should make.
How often do we make the wrong one?
You can read the Old Testament, it is very plain to see the choices that they made and those things that led them away. They became enamored with the ways of the world. They made friends with their unbelieving neighbors and just simply started to do the things that they did. The Israelites had God’s law and his commands but they set those aside because they were interested in cavorting with the Canaanites. They had been given the gift of the temple and worship of the true God. (The creator of the heavens and the earth made his home right there in their land. They were next door neighbors to God himself). But instead they decided to worship with the world around them. They made friends. They went to their homes, their parties, and then to their churches. And soon enough they made their neighbors customs their own. They threw the same parties, they brought their kind of church home to replace the true church and soon enough you couldn’t tell the difference.
Can you tell the difference? Are you, like the Israelites, caught up in worshiping their gods? It should be the other way around. You should be bringing your neighbors here, telling them about your church, your God, all the amazing things that He is doing right here. Are you instead finding yourself engaged in the worship of false gods? Are you worshipping the Baals in the Buckeye state?
Now let’s be real, I doubt your neighbor has an eight foot statue in his shed that’s got a man’s body and with a bulls head. He probably doesn’t worship Baal. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have gods, that she doesn’t have gods. Around here sports is king. Whether it be pee wee sports for the little ones, club sports or the varsity team at school, or watching the Buckeyes on tv. Make no mistake, your neighbors worship the sports god, do you do the same?
But there are other gods.
In small communities people like to talk, they like the know each other’s business. And that means gossip. Sharing information about other people even when you know it’s private. Even when you know it will hurt their reputation and diminish what other people think of them. You know that it’s wrong, you know that God has commanded you to defend the reputation of your neighbor. But hey, everybody else is doing it, therefor it mustn’t be that bad. Do you pray at the altar of the gossip god?
There are hundreds of such gods that we could list off, gods that our neighbors worship, that our neighbors trust in for help or safety or entertainment or fun. Our neighbors worship false gods who offer nothing but a false hope with only a false salvation. Are you going to do the same? Are you going to fall in line with the ways of the world behind you? Or are you going to choose life?
Hear again the words of Moses:
[15] “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. [16] If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. [17] But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, [18] I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. [19] I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, [20] loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

Choose! Choose life! Choose blessing! Choose good. With the heavens and the earth as my witness, don’t choose the bad! Choose the good.
So what does that mean and how do we do that?
Our text tells us.
Love the Lord your God, obey his voice and hold fast to him. Fairly simple. Again, the text says, “Love the Lord your God, obey his voice and hold fast to him.”
It begins with your heart. With love. It’s the same command Jesus gave. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37) Love God. Love him first and most. The way he loves you, with no compromises or excuses. Without holding back. Willing to set it all aside and throw it away because of the profound, self sacrificing, pure and unadulterated love. This is how God loves you. Likewise you should love him. Love. Love God
That love moves you to the next thing. To obey. Obey his voice. When you love God, when He is your first love and your best love then you will obey his voice. And God does use that voice. He does speak to you. A believer, a Christian, one who is baptized can hear his voice calling her in the Word. In prayer and devotions. We can hear God calling us to faith, to obedience, to lay aside the things of th world, to love and care for our neighbors, to set aside foolish and selfish gain, to be humble and generous and kind, the way God is with us. To offer a hand of friendship and forgiveness even and especially to your enemies. God calls us to obedience. He speaks to us in His Word and He calls on you to obey that word.
So we are here to Choose life. We begin that choice with love, our love moves us to obey, and then, the third and final thing that Moses directs us to do is hold fast to him. Cling to him. Hold on to him above all things, in spite of all things, no matter what, whatever happens, whatever anyone else says, whatever everyone else does, hold fast to him.
And so that’s the choice. Love God. Obey his voice. Hold fast to him. And in doing those things you choose good. You choose life. You lay aside and leave behind the false ways and the false gods of your neighbors, of the world around you, and you have life.
But then you don’t. You don’t because you haven’t. You haven’t loved God first and foremost. You haven’t heard and if you’ve heard you haven’t obeyed his voice. You have not clung to him, not how you should. You… You and me too, we have chosen death. We have chosen the bad. We have chosen the ways of the world, the gods of the world. We have laid aside and forfeited God’s blessing.
But he has not forfeited us. He has not laid us aside. You see, while we were busy loving the world, loving our false gods, loving the things of the world and the ways of the world, God was busy loving you. Loving you so much that he sent even his own son to die for you. To pay for your faithless love, to make up for that love that you spread around town with the false gods of your friends. God has loved you.
And he has heard your voice. While you were busy ignoring his voice, refusing to pray, deciding that you would sleep in on that Sunday morning instead of getting up to go to church, he has heard you. He has not turned a deaf ear to your cries for mercy and repentance, for help and strength, he has heard your voice and he has responded, acting with love and forgiveness.
And then, when you were busy holding on to the world he was busy holding on to you. First taking your sin and carrying it with him to the cross, but then finding you, scooping you up in his arms and holding you fast, refusing to be separated from you. Not allowing even death, even your sin and idolatry to keep you away from his loving arms. The Lord has loved you. He has heard your voice and responded. He has clung to you.
Dear friends, the Lord loves you. He has done for you what you have not done for him and this day he calls you. Choose. Choose life. Choose good, because he is your love and he is your life. In His name.