God's Treasured Possession

Tonight, as Keith said, we're going to be looking at the book of Deuteronomy specifically, it's actually a small piece of what Brian read and then prayed over Deuteronomy chapter seven. And we're going to be looking specifically at verses six to eight. Deuteronomy seven, verses six to eight, let me read that. For you are a people holy to the Lord, your God, the Lord, your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession. and of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery. from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. I pray quickly. Father, I pray that this would be your word, not mine. I pray that the strength would be of your spirit and not my own. I pray this would be glorifying to you and pleasing to men. In Jesus name, amen. Well, the book of Deuteronomy, as you're all familiar with, fifth book of the Bible, it's the last in that first section of the Bible that we often call Let's go up to Pentateuch, written by Moses. It literally means second law. And many people have suggested that this is a farewell speech by Moses. He is about to figuratively, if you will, hand off the reins to Joshua. And I would suggest that this particular part of the book is both a memoir, looking backwards, as well as a pep rally. It's very much a specific passage where he looks back as well as forward. As I said, he's nearing the end of his life and he's reflecting or exhorting and lecturing his Israelites on their past mistakes. And in the midst of that, his patience and provision for them. But as I also said, he's also looking forward. There's a reason he's looking back, and that's to point them forward. It's a motivational speech of sorts, as they're going to be entering a very difficult phase as they enter into these battles, as they walk into Canaan and battle for this promised land. He's calling them to faithfulness, to trust in God's steadfast love. And he's showing that since he's continued to do that, he will continue to protect them. And he's calling them to trust in that. So he's looking backward in order to look forward. He's saying that you're a chosen people destined for the promised land. So I want to spend a few minutes focusing on this idea of a treasure possession that you see in the text. I want to talk first about this status, this identity specifically. What does it mean that we, hopefully we'll see that it's actually we that he's talking to, are identified as a holy nation, a treasure possession. And then as a result of that, secondly, I want to talk about our response. What does it mean? How should we act out this role of being his treasured possession? That's where I specifically want to attempt to at least tie it back to Keith's word this morning. So first, Our identity. What does it mean to be a treasured possession? Actually, this idea of a holy nation, the Israelites being a treasured possession appears four times in Deuteronomy. And really all Moses is doing is using that same pedagogical tool that Keith keeps talking about, repetition. He's echoing exactly what God told Moses at Sinai back in Exodus 19. He says that these people should be his treasured possession and a holy nation. And so simply what Moses is doing is reminding them of this, telling them that, look, all this past obedience, this grumbling in the wilderness, this constant worship of other gods. We didn't read it, but in the previous section, he's talking about the danger of all these pagan gods that the Canaanites are worshiping and their intermarriage as well. And he's saying, no, stop it. Start acting like a separated people. You're called to a higher purpose. You're distinct. You're his first fruits. You should be peculiar, as we sometimes say, from all the peoples on the earth, as the verse says. So again, you are a people that are promised and start acting like it. And he reinforces this idea of who we are now by talking about where we came from. The new status is reinforced by our old status. So look at verse 80 says that we are redeemed from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh. Now, we all know that the Exodus in the Old Testament is a great foreshadowing of the coming great redemption, the once and for all redemption that we see in Christ. And there's a reason that God is constantly reminding his people to remember this feat, to remember this event throughout the Old Testament, because it points. It's a symbol of what he will perfectly fulfill in Christ in the New Testament. And this covenant, as we know, at the pivot in redemptive history when Christ comes, changes this covenant, or I should say it crystallizes this covenant from a nation, a national identity in Israel, to one in which the covenant is with his people, all of us that have confessed Christ. And so we see this same language echoed in the New Testament. And that's why Paul can say, as he writes to the Colossians, that he has delivered us, you and I, from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son. And Peter, I think, nails it even closer, channeling Moses very specifically. He says, he's called us to be a chosen race, a royal priesthood. This is treasured possession language right here, who were called out of darkness into his marvelous light. So Moses is simply saying, stop acting like you were. You are a treasured possession and start acting like that. Is your life reflecting a situation of looking back to Egypt, or is it one that's reflecting one that's looking forward to the promised land? Not the old life, but the new life. So how do we act out this treasure possession? That's a little bit about the theological basis for who we are, that identity of being a treasure possession. Paul understands that this is a high calling, that this is not easy. He tells us constantly to walk worthy of that calling. That passage that I just alluded to by Peter says the whole purpose of our separateness, if you will, is that we proclaim his excellency. In other words, collectively, our whole purpose in being separated is to glorify God. So what does that mean? Well, certainly that separateness is not meant to be physical. We're supposed to live faithfully among the world, among each other. What exactly does this mean? Well, I was trying to think through some application about how we live separately with the world. As I said, I want to talk about how this separateness plays out with the world as well as with each other in the church. So first with the world, certainly not exhaustive, but a few ideas. In our workplace, and particularly us men that are just wired terribly prideful, right? How often do you struggle with selfish ambition at work? How often is your workplace, your organization, almost in a Darwinistic sense, a strongest will survive mentality? How often is your success, at least in your mind, dependent on others' failures? How often do you gossip and slander, maybe not even consciously, I hope we're not consciously doing it, but how often are we allowing ourselves to be tempted to that in order to build tactfully up your own career? I know I'm guilty of this in the past. And speaking of speech, how is your speech at work when we're not in these pews? I mean, I certainly hope we're not cursing. I'm not talking about profanity. But how do you do you get drawn into coarse language as we see in the Bible? Do you get drawn into unedifying discussion? Is it different for you? Do people notice something different for you? Are you just blending into these conversations at work? Secondly, how about outside of your workplace in your community? You all have different interactions and domains in which you interact. Ours tends to be at the gym or in our neighborhood, but you can all imagine your domains of interaction. Are you modeling humility? Are you modeling confession? Or are you like everybody else that puts on that robe, that air of self-righteousness? It's got it all together. The marriage perfect, the kids are perfectly obedient. We've got it all together. And I would encourage you that we need to talk openly about our shortcomings, about our brokenness. I think we're the most dangerous type of self-righteous folks because we know our Bible and we come to church two or three times a week. That's the scariest, most dangerous form of self-righteousness. But we need to be modeling this humility. We need to be modeling this confession openly and talking about what Christ has done to restore that brokenness. And finally, how about thirdly, how about your activities? How are we spending our time? How are we redeeming our time during the week? movies, music, how much TV are we watching. This is not a call to legalism, certainly. There's not a good list and a bad list. But I would just encourage you to be deliberate about everything you're doing. Your lifestyle, your family's lifestyle, should look different than the neighbor across the fence. It should clearly be different, and it should glorify God. I can promise you that people look at me very peculiarly at work. They know how rabid of a Red Sox fan, of a UVA football fan, when I say, no, I didn't see the game last night, I don't have cable. They look at me, Mike, I've got four eyes. What are you talking about? You don't have cable. And it leads into some very good discussion. Again, that's my conviction, not yours. I'm just suggesting an example of a way to be different. So ask yourself, when it comes to dealing with the world, do people notice something different about you? Do you stand out or do you just fit in with everyone else, particularly the six days outside of the Lord's day? Do you have one foot in the world and one foot in the church, as we like to say, just like these Israelites were being lectured on by Moses? Again, are you living a life that reflects Egypt, your old self? Are you living a life that reflects across that Jordan in the promised land? Because, brothers and sisters, if our lives simply just look like everyone else's, we're lying to the world about who God is and we're essentially rendering Christ's works meaningless. And that's a scary offense. Secondly, how does this treasured possession play out in the church? How do we live out our calling to be a holy nation defined differently in the New Testament, of course, among each other? So look at verse seven. There's nothing inherently lovable about us to God. As Keith said this morning, we can't add anything to God. He doesn't need anything from us. In fact, he says we were the fewest of all peoples. He's not talking about just quantity. We are the lowest. of all peoples. This is crazy. He has built a remnant, a people, composed of people like you and me that are wicked and rebellious and unrighteous. This is hard to understand. It's hard to comprehend. It's a love we don't know, naturally, without God spirit reflecting and illuminating that for us. It speaks this morning to what Keith said about how often are we guilty of essentially just rendering our definition of love to God and then even judging him for it, right? If God really loved us, he wouldn't have done that. If God really loved us, he would do this for me, right? That's worldly love being cast, Keith's word, upon God. And worldly love is what? Well, it's feeling unjudged. It's a love that wants, you know, free to be me, is what we hear. The need to express myself. It's about self-fulfillment. It's you complete me, is what we're used to hearing, right? It's designed to maximize my present utility. Love, as defined by the world, is a maximation of me. This is nothing but self-idolatry. This is worship of me. This is not love, by any means. And this is the nonsense we see manifested in all these romantic comedies that come out of Hollywood. It's when I'm fully fulfilled, there is complete utopia, right? But biblical love, as we saw in 1 John 4, God's love, as made manifest in Jesus Christ, the omnipotent creator God, condescended took on our flesh, took on our nature, took our sin, lived a life we should have lived and took on our sin and the wrath we deserved in order that we may live. It was completely sacrificial, completely sacrificial. There was no attempt or there was no desire or expectation of reciprocation in that love. It's a love that perseveres, that doesn't expect that reciprocation. It's a love that serves not to be served, but in fact, to just put the interest of others above yourself. And most importantly, it's not conditional on anything the subject of that love can do, may do, or will do in the future as a result of your love for them. I had a very difficult lunch with an acquaintance. I don't know him well, but an acquaintance on Friday, and he is unemployed and he's having some really difficult marital problems. It was a very difficult conversation. And he was telling me about this, and he said that his wife has ceased to do any of the housework she did previously. She has no interest in speaking with him. She's questioning, in fact, why they're even together. This is 20 plus years of marriage. He said, she's completely turned her back on me. How can I possibly, how long can I possibly put up with that? Now, I don't want to downplay how miserable this situation might be and how difficult this brother, of a situation this brother is facing. But what a glorious picture of the gospel. Because what's the answer to the question of how long? Well, it's forever. Faithfully pursue her and serve her in the midst of her rebellion. Because who do we identify in this story, right? It's the wife. God pursued us in the midst of all this rebellion. We are the wife in this story. And so my message was simply to love her more. But John, you don't understand. Love her more. But you're not getting me, John. Love her more. That's all that matters. This is the love that is from God. He's modeled it for us. And it's now what he expects us to emulate. So how does this play out among our church, among brothers and sisters? We talked a little bit about the world. How about some situations, some relationships in the church? While we're on marriage, let's talk a little bit about that. Do we see our marriages, for those of us that are married, as contracts? 50-50 proposition? Do we often say, man, they are not holding up their end of the deal. They're not pulling the weight around here that they should be. That's nothing but a false gospel. We're all guilty of that, I know, but it is a false gospel. I would encourage you in those marital valleys to not be thinking about the shortcomings of that spouse, whether it's negligence or not, but in fact be reflecting on your own hardening of heart. Because often that frustration, or at least the level of the frustration, is a function of your own sin. And I would begin to serve them and love them without any expectation of reciprocation. You'll be surprised what happens. Don't let that be your expectation, but you'll be shocked at what happens. Love like Christ. I was brainstorming this afternoon, secondly, on Per Keefe's message, the diverse nature of this body. Now, the church in itself God has, in his wisdom, made a diverse body, but Jefferson Park is particularly diverse. I was just thinking through, I mean, we've got farmers, engineers, investment professionals, Keith calls us bean counters, students, retirees, stay-at-home moms, professors. We've got Sherry States. She does a little bit of everything. I don't know what it is, but she's important. They're very different people. I don't know the first thing about farming. I don't know the first thing about metal. Sean tells me this stuff about metal. I'm thinking, love him more. Love him more. But how often, how do we respond to that diversity? You know, how often do we say, well, you know what? They don't really have an interest. We're not alike. So I'm not going to ask them over to lunch. I'm going to maybe a passing hello. I don't want to get into deep conversation. I don't really want to hear about farming, about metal. Or are we loving them first? Are we pursuing them? Are we putting their own interests, what they want to talk about, above our own? Our unity is much stronger than our vocation and our background and our lifestyle and what point of life we are. We've talked about the elderly last week on Wednesday. The generational bond is meaningless compared to the unity that we have in the blood of Christ. Finally, children, specifically, and this is a different angle on the same message. Do you desire to make efforts to only surround yourself with other people that make you feel good about yourself? That have all the same interests as you? Do you avoid the other children and adults, for that matter, that are a little different because of their background, because of their lifestyle, their stages in life? And I want to speak to you specifically tonight, children, that the strongest unity that you have with these other folks, if you're in Christ, is the unity that you were chosen. God shows you as his treasured possession, and he chose that other person as his treasured possession. So regardless of the color of someone's skin, whether someone's homeschooled or goes to public school or private school, regardless of what sports they like, Much more importantly is that we are God's people and collectively we are our sole purpose is to glorify God together. So pursue them. When you look at them next Sunday, I want you to consider first that Christ died for that person and love them because Christ loved them first and is now calling you in response to love them as well. So let us walk worthy of this undeserved calling to be his treasured possession. And to love as he's taught us to love in his biblical version and definition of love, and love each other no matter how different we are, because he loved us first. Let's pray. Father, this is difficult. It's difficult for us to comprehend the depth of your love. It is a calling and a command that we have challenges to emulate. And I pray that you would give us the strength to love others because you loved us first, to love others that are different from us, as Pastor Goode preached this morning, to pursue them faithfully, even to love others in the midst of their rebellion and hatred for you. I pray that we would be a treasured possession that glorifies you boldly, that the world and each other would see something very different in us. And ultimately, we would use that separateness to point directly to you, Christ. I thank you, Lord, for this day. I thank you for the fact that you have set aside a day to rest in your word, to rest in Christ, and I pray that it was glorifying to you. In Jesus' name, amen.