Sermon Preached February 13, 2011 by Pastor Spaude

A Faithful God Expects Faithful Children - Deuteronomy 30:15-20

A FAITHFUL GOD EXPECTS FAITHFUL CHILDREN is the theme of our sermon today. So just what is God expecting of us, His children, when he asks us to be FAITHFUL to Him? Perhaps an illustration from marriage will help us understand. Jim and Allison are married. Jim in a moment of selfishness frowns on Allison’s desire to buy a new dress. But in that same act of selfishness Jim goes out and buys himself that new fly fishing rod that he has always wanted. We would understand if Allison would be upset at Jim for acting so selfish. We would even grant her the right to give him the cold shoulder and be distant for a while. But that one act of selfishness on Jim’s part would hardly justify Allison to turn her back on Jim and walk out on him and their marriage forever. Jim wasn’t unfaithful, just stupid and selfish. But what if Jim began to have an affair with another woman or have an affair with pictures on his computer screen. What if this went on for many years? What if Jim tried to hide it from Allison and then she finally found out? Would anyone blame her for deciding to turn her back on Jim and walk out of that relationship forever? After all, he gave all his attention, all of his love and, in fact, his whole self to someone else. He was unfaithful.

Have you ever had someone expect something of you that you weren’t able to do? Maybe a parent expected too much of you because they wanted you to be like they were growing up? Perhaps a teacher now is too demanding. I remember a teacher at St. Marks Lutheran grade school in Watertown WI where I grew up. She was my fifth grade teacher. She expected everyone in the class to get A’s. I remember one time she few into a rage when I shot a spitball at someone. She dragged me into the Principal’s office and demanded that I be kicked out of school. Granted what I did was wrong, but like with the grades she expected perfect behavior and this from 5^th grade boys. That was my worst school year of my life.

God doesn’t expect that we be perfect, because he knows we can’t. One of the most comforting accounts in the OT is found in Zecheriah chapter 3. God showed his prophet Zechariah a vision of Joshua the High Priest. He was standing before the Angel of the Lord. The clothes he was wearing were filthy. Satan standing at his right hand accusing him. Zechariah hears the Lord say, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan.” Then he hears the Angel say to those standing with him, “Remove the filthy garments from him. Behold, Joshua, I have taken your iniquity away from you and I clothe you with clean garments.” Then the Angel of the Lord assured Joshua with these words: “Thus says the Lord of Hosts: If you will walk in my ways and keep my commands, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts.”

How comforting that God doesn’t expect of you something you can’t do. “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” I can’t do that. So God did it for you. When Satan whispers his accusations in our ears we feel like the high Priest Joshua standing with filthy clothes before Satan and God. The filth of our sin is embarrassing. I don’t want anyone to know the dirty thoughts I had. I don’t’ want my family, my friends or even someone sitting here with me in church to know the judgmental and mean thoughts I had about them. I don’t’ want the world to know how weak my faith is at times. How embarrassing! I especially don’t’ want God to know how imperfect I am, how unfit for his perfect heaven I am.

But God gently whispers in our ears, “I have taken your iniquity away from you and I clothe you with clean garments” as we receive his body and blood in the Holy Supper. When God reminds you through your baptisms that you have two sets of parents he is also reminding you that your baptismal waters washed away the guilt of your sin. Can you see what this is? It is ashes from our fire pit. Ashes are pure carbon. Do you see this. It is a diamond and my wife’s wedding ring. Do you know what that diamond is made of? That’s right, carbon. In the imperfection of our sin we are ashes. But the gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ can take the Carbon Cinders of Sin that we are and declare us to be a diamond, Gorgeous Gems of God, for His own crown.

The words the Angel of the Lord spoke to the High Priest Joshua are almost the exact words of our sermon text. “See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. ”

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With those words, God who was FAITHFUL to the children of Israel and to us by turning us worthless cinders of Sin into valuable gems, that God was asking his people to simply be FAITHFUL to him. An easy choice it would seem. But the parents of these people Moses was speaking to in Deuteronomy previously chose a statue of a Golden Calf instead of the security of their God. They chose please an idol that looked like a male reproductive organ instead of praising their God. They chose the lust of sexual orgies instead of the love of God. And they paid for it. This group Moses was addressing in chapter 30 were the children of those Israelites condemned to wander 40 years in the desert until their deaths all because they made the wrong choice. Now God was giving them a second chance to choose to be FAITHFUL to Him.

God expects you and me to be FAITHFUL as well. Choose God and with Him life and prosperity over death and destruction. An easy choice, right? It wasn’t for Adam and Eve. When given the choice between God and fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they chose the fruit. Why? Discontent. They felt they were missing out, that there was something better. Choosing God over a piece of fruit seems easy until we examine our lives. Have you ever found yourselves thinking, “There must be something better than this marriage I am. A divorce would be better, someone else out there is better?” Have you ever thought, “I need something more certain to hang on to than this “hope in God”? And so we choose the security of our bank accounts or security of the lifestyle we’ve built up. College and high school kids- ever thought, “Gee, I’m must be missing something out there. Everyone else seems to have so much fun?” Sometimes the wrong choices we make are obvious: Kids on Sunday morning: sports or church? Offerings: 10% or 2%? Spouses: TV or time with my significant other? Drugs: Yes or No?

The choice would seem obvious, yet often we make the wrong choice. How do we make the right choice? Certainly not by ourselves. If it comes down to a battle between my brain and my Old Sinful Adam, my Old Adam will win and make me justify what I believe according to my human reason to. If it comes down to a battle between my heart, that is, my emotions and my Old Sinful Adam, my Old Adam will win and make me call a sin only what seems fair to everyone. If it comes down to a battle between my hormones and my Old Sinful Adam, well, we all know who wins. We make the right choices by “listening to his voice, and holding fast to him.”

At the Pastor Conference I attended last month, the presenter, Pastor Jon Schroeder from Georgia made a very thought provoking statement. He said, “Often when we as pastors find that we are slipping in our devotional life, we look and see that our ministry is going poorly and conclude that God is punishing us for our lack of listening to his word and holding fast to him. There is a better way to look at it. When we are in the word and listen to God’s voice and hold fast to him, our perspective changes. What we perceive as bad perhaps isn’t so bad. What we perceive as hopeless perhaps isn’t so hopeless. We see that while the past and its mistakes can’t be changed, we are reminded that God still controls our present and holds our futures as well.”

The children of Israel got into problems making the wrong choices in their lives because they quit “listening to the voice of God.” They lost perspective to see through the blinding lies of Satan and choose wisely. Remember Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish builders. There is even the song: “The wise man built his house upon the rock, the wise man built his house upon the rock.” The rock is the word of God. The rains and storms of life were not able to wash that faith away. Are you building your house upon the rock or the sand?

God gives us a very good reason to want to build on the rock to “listen to his voice. The Lord God is your life.” God chose to make a you, a Cinder of Sin into a Gem of God. God has given you spiritual life, has made you now something of value- worth more than all the gold and sliver in the world, you are his precious child. He now provides, protects, listens, loves and cares for you. God is our life. He is our everything- without him we are nothing in this life and have nothing in the life to come. God has been FAITHFUL to us. Now he expects us to be FAITHFUL to Him. Love Him with your whole heart, soul and mind- for “He loved you first.” Center the goals of your life and your family’s life on Him for he took center on this world’s stage to save you. Serve Him with your time talents and gifts for he “did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Amen.