Sermon for MHBC (18 April 2021). You can listen on Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, or our website. Live at 11:00am on Sundays.
John Owen has this famous line: “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”
The Nicene Creed defines the Church as “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.” We don’t need to explain all of those adjectives this morning, but the one I want you to notice is “holy.” To be holy means to be different, to be set apart. The Church is called to reflect the character of the one who called her. Since God is holy and perfect, the calling of the Church is to be holy and perfect. This is the Christian calling: Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. We will never achieve it in this lifetime, but it is the calling no less. It means a relentless pursuit of holiness through constant repentance and obedience.
I love the way J. C. Ryle defines holiness. He writes, “Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God … It is the habit of agreeing in God’s judgement, hating what He hates, loving what He loves, and measuring everything in this world by the standard of His Word.”[1]
You may be wondering where I’m going with all of this. A few weeks ago, I promised you that I would share with you a passage in which I believe the Lord spoke to me and confirmed my calling to Monument Heights. Now I want to be clear. These things are always subjective. I could be wrong. So I won’t spend a lot of time on my subjective experience. That’s not that important. What is important is the passage and I think it gives us some vital instructions. I can summarize it this way: The foundation of any successful renewal will be an uncompromising obedience.
Before we jump into the passage here in Deuteronomy 8, I want to give you two guidelines for reading an OT passage like this. First, the passage is spoken to Israel, but this doesn’t make it totally irrelevant for us. One of the functions of the OT law is to reveal the character and working of God, so at the very least we learn how God interacts with his people. Second, the OT law along with all of its promises are fulfilled by Christ. That means, by extension, that these promises are ours in Christ. They still hold true for God’s people. So practically speaking, when we read a passage like this, we are being instructed by the pattern of how God worked with Israel and to read it as Christians, we must always see its fulfillment in Christ.
With that said, let’s jump into Deuteronomy 8, beginning in v. 1. The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers. This verse is really the heading for the whole chapter. It summarizes everything that is to follow. Be careful to obey what the Lord has said. Then notice the results, so that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers.
So there’s instruction and promise. Obey the commands and you can expect God’s blessing. The challenge for us as we move forward as a church, seeking reformation and renewal, moving into a rapidly changing culture, is that we would prioritize what God has commanded us as the church. Paul develops this well when he writes to the Corinthian believers. He explains to them that the history of Israel was an example for the church so that we would not make the same mistakes. Our calling is a calling to obedience and holiness.
But also notice that the LORD is faithful. The whole basis of this command is because the LORD has promised to give the land to their fathers. The LORD is faithful even when we are not. But the LORD will bless our faithfulness.
Let’s go on to the next instruction in v. 2: And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.
Pay attention to the initial instruction. You shall remember what God has done. This is important. Throughout this whole chapter there is the repeated emphasis on remembering and not forgetting. This is critical to faithfulness and obedience.
In the OT, the Israelites would standup these huge stones to remind themselves of how God had acted. The yearly feasts were intended to rehearse the story of how God had acted. Keeping Passover was done annually for that reason. As Christians, we must remember, first and foremost, how God has acted in Christ for us. We must rehearse the gospel to ourselves daily—that we were once dead, but in Christ we are alive. That’s the basis for everything we do. And then, as a church, we must remember God’s faithfulness in the past. Monument Heights started in 1950 and God has been pleased to save people through the ministries of this church. And for 71 years, he has sustained this congregation. Remember and don’t forget.
Notice the second part of this verse. He led them in the wilderness so that he might humble them, testing them, in order to know what was in their heart, whether they would be obedient or not. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, obstacles are opportunities for faithfulness.
Let’s be honest. Our spot is somewhat difficult. Our congregation has declined. We are in a post-Christian culture that is rapidly becoming more disinterested if not hostile toward Christianity. Gone are the days of a predominantly Christian culture. What do we do? This is an opportunity for us to renew our faithfulness, to search our hearts, to repent. The Lord is showing us where we have strayed, where we have prioritized the wrong things. The answer is not becoming more relevant or attractional. The answer is being faithful, being obedient, going back to the old ways. This church was founded on one of the most solid Baptist confessions of faith. Part of our renewal means going back to that. It means pruning aspects of our organization that are unnecessary and unimportant. It means taking sin seriously and not sacrificing truth for peace.
It may well be that we will have tests in the near future. Our obedience may be tested. We may have to make some difficult decisions in order to be faithful, but the lesson we must learn is that our life and health are dependent on what God has said.
Look at v. 3 with me: And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Of course, you are probably familiar with this verse because Jesus quotes it in the NT when he was tempted by Satan. Do you remember that temptation? Jesus has been fasting. He is hungry. And Satan urges him to take matters into his own hands. Jesus responds by trusting in his heavenly Father’s provision.
In applying this to our congregation, we can say, “A church does not live by buildings, programs, facilities, budgets alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.” Our first priority must be to attend to Scripture, to be shaped by it, and above all to be obedient to it. As James says, “Hearing without obedience is like looking in a mirror and forgetting what you saw.”
Now let me go back to where we began. I began with some quotes about killing sin. I did that because for us to be obedient we must take holiness seriously. Paul says it this way in Rom 8:13: For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Attending to the words of God is a matter of life and death. With the aid of the Spirit, we must constantly be assessing, repenting, and striving for holiness. This applies at both the individual and corporate level. The reformers said the reformed church is always reforming. As a congregation, we must constantly assess what we do against the rubric of Scripture. Life and health don’t come from slick strategies or our own clever ideas. They come from the Word of God.
Let’s move quickly through vv. 4–6: Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. See how the Lord blessed them. He takes care of his people and one expression of that care is through discipline. Learning obedience means maturity. Notice what that looks like. Keep is commandments by walking in his ways and by fearing him.
And this obedience is vital because the Lord is giving good things. I want to look at vv. 7–10 next. Now I share this with you with some hesitation because it’s entirely subjective, but while I was still wrestling with the potential call here at Monument Heights, I read this chapter and felt as though the Lord was speaking directly to me. I firmly believed he was promising good things. But again, that’s subjective. I could be wrong. I could be out of my mind. Look at those verses with me:
For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.
Again, this may have nothing to do with the blessing of Monument Heights, but what is certain is that this is how God works for his people. He promises good to us, not because we’ve done anything, but because Christ has won it for us.
In order for us to really grasp the import of this passage for us today, we have to do some biblical theology. The book of Hebrews is an exhortation to persevere, which is really what I’m saying to us this morning because that’s really what Deuteronomy 8 is about. Be obedient. Hebrews talks about entering the place of blessing and rest and then it urges us to strive to enter that rest. And here is what Hebrews says to us in 4:11: Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. And how do we do that? By keeping our eyes on Christ, by following him, by a radical desire for obedience.
So while the promise of coming into a good land with fruits and blessings may not bear out the way we might always expect, the promise is still ours in Christ. The Lord intends to bless his people. And when we keep our eyes on Christ in obedience, we can expect the Lord to bless us.
Now the rest of Deuteronomy 8 gives us some warnings, some things to watch out for. Look at v. 11: Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today. The warning is not to forget. What is the practical expression of forgetting the Lord? Disobedience. When a church has turned away from Scripture, she has forgotten the Lord. The remedy for this is a renewed emphasis on Scripture and the gospel. We must continue to rehearse the gospel—what God has done in Christ. It’s not something we ever get over. We need the gospel today just as much as the day we first believed.
Now just so I’m totally clear, here’s what I mean by the gospel. I mean that we are guilty before a holy God and that Christ died for our sins, so that we might be counted righteous, and he rose again, and by repentance and trust, we are united to him in his death and resurrection. Never forget. That’s the warning here. Look at vv. 12–16:
lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end.
Notice is all for our good. God means all things for the good of his people, which means obedience is not a burden but a privilege. Never forget that in Christ we have been delivered from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, that in Christ we have been made alive. Preach it to yourself every day. When a church forgets the gospel or neglects the gospel for life advice or talks, it will die.
There’s a second warning. Don’t be arrogant. Look at v. 17: Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ I pray God will bless Monument Heights. But if he does, we must not be arrogant. We must not think our power or our skill or our strategies did it. The remedy is in v. 18: You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
And here’s the final warning in vv. 19–20: And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God. We exist for one purpose and we must be absolutely dogmatic about this. We exist for the glory of God. We aren’t here for ourselves. We aren’t here for traditional values. We aren’t here for political reasons. We exist for the glory of God. And this must be the line we draw. We have to be willing to stand there and fight there.
Because the truth of the matter is that we will meet challenges. When it comes to obedience and the glory of God, there will be a real battle. There will be people within our own ranks who will seek to their own glory, who will shun obedience, who will neglect the word of God, but we must be willing to be obedient for the glory of God.
Now I’ve shared a passage with you that is deeply personal to me, but I also think it’s extremely relevant to this congregation. Remember I believe the Lord illuminated this passage to me before I had even preached a candidacy sermon in this pulpit. I knew very little about Monument Heights in reality. But do you not agree that this is the word we need to hear? I’ve been here six months now, and I believe Deuteronomy 8 is entirely relevant to our future direction. We have challenges ahead of us. They will call for humility, repentance, and obedience. But I believe the Lord will bless us in ways we could never imagine. I believe God might be pleased to use this church for the glory of his name. O Lord, may it be so.
[1] Holiness, 34.