Revealed for Us

Sermon Transcript

What do you need in order to live a good life? Everyone has an idea of what a good life looks like. It might look like a life of service to others, having a successful family, traveling the world, creating great art, or being true to yourself. If you’re a Christian, the good life is a life of obedience to God and following him wherever he leads. Whatever your idea of the good life is, I’m sure you recognize that there are ways that you don’t live up to your highest principles. So what do you need in order to really live up to your vision of the good life? Do you need a life hack that will help you organize your schedule? Do you need more willpower? Do you need people to stop keeping you down? Do you need to type of insight into your life that a personality test or therapist can provide?

Prior to our passage this morning, God had rescued his people, the nation of Israel, from slavery in Egypt and miraculously led them through the wilderness for 40 years. He had made a covenant with them at Horeb, also known as Mt. Sinai, and revealed the commandments to them. Israel had seen God’s goodness and knew how to obey him: yet they did not. They built idols, grumbled against him, and refused to trust God when he told them to cross into the land he had given him. What could possibly make such a stubborn people obey God as they ought to? 

In our passage this morning, Moses gathers the people together in the land of Moab, and God renews his covenant with the people, clearly spelling out why they should obey the law, reminding them of their covenant relationship with God, and telling them what would happen if they were disobedient. The message to the people that day was, “God has revealed his covenant to you for your obedience.” And that is still God’s message to his people today. The passage shows us the reason for obedience, the covenant for obedience, and the warning against disobedience, and we’ll look at each of those.

The reason for obedience

Moses introduces the covenant by reminding the people of what the Lord has done who is making this covenant with them. He reminds them of many of the Lord’s mighty works that he’s done to provide for them in verse 2 – frankly, this is just an overwhelming record of God’s faithfulness: in Egypt, God moved heaven and earth to make Pharoah release the Israelites from their slavery. He turned the Nile river to blood, sent frogs, gnats, flies, disease, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and finally slew all the firstborn children and animals in Egypt while passing over the Israelites. And when Pharoah’s army pursued the Israelites, he parted the sea so that they could walk across on dry land, then swallowed Pharoah’s army up in the sea. After escaping from Egypt, he miraculously provided for them in the wilderness. I recently was surprised when I took off a pair of pants I’ve had for a couple years and they had a big hole in the butt – yet Moses reminds the Israelites that after 40 years in the wilderness, their clothes hadn’t worn out, and their sandals hadn’t worn off their feet! They did not need to eat bread because God provided miraculous food from heaven, and they did not need to drink wine or strong drink, since he made water come to them in the dry desert. And these were things that were seen by the generation of people Moses was speaking to. They were the ones who had been rescued from slavery in Egypt and walking in the wilderness with God!

And yet, Moses tells the people in verse 4: “but to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.” Israel had seen and heard all these amazings signs: their eyes and ears worked. But their hearts had missed the point of them. The purpose of the signs is revealed in verse 6: “so that you may know that I am the Lord your God”. The Israelites had seen God provide for them and lead them. They ought to have known that he cared for them and would lead them wherever they were to go. Yet, when it came time to enter the land God had promised to them, the people were too afraid to enter because they were scared of the inhabitants of the land. They were like a child who has seen their parent go down a slide, knows it is safe, and yet is too scared to join. 

They ought to have seen the point of the miracles and signs. One, God is the Lord. He is absolutely powerful and capable of doing anything he wills. And two, he is “the Lord your God”. He was their God. He cared for them and had made them his people. He had staked his reputation and his name on their success.

Lest you start ragging on the people of Israel for their hard-headedness, take a look at your own life. If you are alive today, you have experienced a miracle of God. Just as he rescued his people from Egypt, he has governed the universe in such a way that you are alive today – he has provided a planet with water and oxygen at just the right distance from the sun to sustain life, he has stopped nuclear wars from happening, he has stopped cars from hitting you. For many of you, he’s healed you from diseases and accidents, provided money so you can pay your rent. If you’re here today, he’s woken you up this morning. 

In the Bible’s narratives, it’s clear that God is the actor in Israel’s story, but it might not have been so clear to the Israelites, or to us. No matter how amazing the coincidence or fantastic the miracle that our eyes see and ears hear, our hearts still can come up other explanations, so we don’t understand that it’s been God taking care of us. Our eyes see, and our ears hear, but our hearts don’t understand. We don’t remember that God is the Lord, and we don’t remember that he is our God. And so we fear what the future holds: we fear that God won’t provide us with what we need to live. We fear our children won’t turn out okay. We fear that we will be alone.

We fear that following God’s commands won’t really bring us joy. So just like the Israelites, the fear that we have leads us to disobedient actions, not because we don’t know what we ought to do, but because we don’t want to do it. We think we know a better way than God, because we don’t remember who he is. We are afraid that God won’t provide us with enough money, so we don’t give generously. We are afraid that God’s word isn’t powerful, so we don’t talk about Jesus with our neighbors. We are afraid that the life God has assigned to us isn’t good, so we spend our time entertaining ourselves in fantasy worlds.

When we forget God’s character and look to other things to satisfy us, we act as if the Lord our God is not there, regardless of what we say we believe. This is what pastor and author Paul Tripp calls “functional atheism”. We reveal with our choices the unbelief in our hearts.

So how do you fight functional atheism? Moses reminds us that a heart to understand, eyes to see, and ears to hear, are a gift from the Lord. We can’t generate a believing heart for ourselves. And yet, he reminds the people of real things about the real God. Moses just overwhelms the Israelites with reminders of who their God is. He is the God who rescued them from the land of Egypt and parted the sea. He is the God who gave them victory when kings came out to battle against the people. He is the God who gave their land as an early inheritance to the people before they had even crossed the river as proof that he would give them the rest of the land as well. Because of all this, the people could be confident in what Moses told them to do in verse 9: to keep the words of the covenant and do them, to be obedient to everything God commanded them to do, because they had every reason to believe that they would prosper from obedience to God. Moses prepared the hearts of the people to receive God’s gift of understanding by reminding them of who he is, the Lord our God, and giving them reasons for thankfulness. 

So you, too, when you are afraid of what the future holds, remember his provision for you. Ask, “what are the good things God has already done in my life”? Paul in Philippians 4:5-7 reminds us of this: “The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” The Lord our God is near, and he has done great things for us, so  pray with thanksgiving, bring your anxieties to him, and receive the peace of God which we cannot understand for ourselves but fills us with the assurance that he is the Lord our God. When we thankfully remember who God is, we have the power to obey his commands.

The Covenant for Obedience

Deuteronomy 29 is all about a covenant. So let’s look at the covenant God makes with the people, for their obedience. A covenant is a relationship between two parties, with each promising to fulfil certain responsibilities. Marriage is one example: it’s a promise for a husband to love his wife and lay down his life for her as Christ did for the church, and for a wife to love her husband and submit to him. Each member of our church signs a membership covenant; that we commit to the responsibilities of worshiping together, praying for one another, and the other responsibilities basic to the Christian life. Here is the covenant relationship that God joins in with his people, in verse 13: “that he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he promised you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”

God promises to be his people’s God. We’ve already seen what that looks like: he rescues and provides for his people, and he promises to keep doing that. He was the God of their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he is establishing them today in that same relationship. He promises to be their God and continue to save, keep, and help them.

So what responsibilities are God’s people called to commit to? They are simply to be his people, God’s people. And the way that they are to be God’s people is through their exclusive obedience to him. That’s what God’s people are called to throughout this passage. In verse 9, they are to keep all the words of the covenant. In verse 18, they are warned against idolatry – giving obedience and worship to any other god. In verse 29, the covenant is revealed to them so that they will do the words of the law.

This covenant renews the covenant referenced earlier in the passage, the one God makes at Horeb, also called Mt. Sinai. You can find it in Deuteronomy 5. In verse 6, God says: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” The covenant is rooted in him being God – the God who brought them out of slavery in Egypt. And because of that, the people are to be his obedient people – they are not to worship any other gods. They are to worship God in the way that he has prescribed, by keeping the rest of the 10 commandments: not to make idols, not to take the Lord’s name in vain, to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy, to honor their parents, not to murder, commit adultery, steal, lie, or covet.

The covenant promise is this: God will continue to be the God who rescues his people, and the people will be his people by giving him exclusive worship and obedience.

The other important thing to notice is who God says he is making the covenant with. God says “it is not with you alone [those who are standing there listening to the covenant in the land of Moab], it is not with you alone that I am making this sworn covenant, but with whoever is standing here with us today before the Lord our God, and with whoever is not here with us today.” He covenants with those standing before Moses that day. And while “whoever is not here with us today” may refer to those Israelites who were sick and unable to join the assembly, the principle is that God doesn’t just covenant with those in the land of Moab – he makes his covenant with all who he has been God to.

And hasn’t he been God to you? Hasn’t he given you life and breath? Hasn’t he woken you up this morning? You are living before the Lord. And you are responsible for keeping the covenant by being obedient to him, no matter who you are. It’s not just the heads of tribes and the elders God covenants with – it’s the little ones, the children, the traveling foreigners, the wood choppers and water gatherers. Your pastor cannot be obedient to God on your behalf. Children, your parents cannot be obedient before God for you. There is not a person who is so small, weak, or powerless that they do not stand before the living God. God has created you, he has given you life and breath, he has rescued you from innumerable ways to die so that you can be here today. He has been your God. Now, it is up to you to be obedient to him, to walk in and keep his commandments.

The warning against disobedience

And it is a terrible thing to go astray from the commandments of God that his people ought to walk in. Our passage concludes with a stern warning against disobedience. Just as he pronounces in verse 9 that if the people keep the words of the covenant they will prosper in all that they do, God proclaims a curse on all who are disobedient. 

Look at the warnings in verses 20-28. God promised living peacefully in the land to his people when they kept the covenant, but exile if they broke it. For the one who breaks the covenant, the anger of the Lord will burn like fire. God even promises that fire would come down on the land just as it did on Sodom and Gomorrah, those notoriously wicked cities. If the people broke his covenant, they would cease to function as his people, and be just like Sodom and Gomorrah. They would not live in God’s land and enjoy his presence.

The people’s obedience was central to their identity as God’s people. Being obedient to God is just what his people do. Imagine someone says they’re an employee of Burger King. They may have a Burger King shirt. They may eat Burger King burgers. They may even have a little paper crown. But if they do not do the one thing expected of Burger King employees, to show up for a shift and work in the restaurant, they either show that they are not, or cease to be, Burger King employees. And they will be treated as such when it’s pay day. So if Israel ceased to be obedient to the covenant, they would be cut off from all the benefits of being his people.

They will be kicked out of the land the Lord God gave to them and exiled to a far away nation. And after all those things happen, Deuteronomy 29:22 says that their children and foreigners will look at how bad things are – burnt fields, exile, total destruction – and ask, “why did this happen?”. And it is because they abandoned the covenant and went and served other gods and worshiped them.

Abandoning the covenant means two things: idolatry and irresponsibility. Idolatry is described in verse 18: “Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations.” Idolatry is giving to anything else what we owe to God – our service and worship. God brought his people out of slavery in Egypt, so they should serve and worship him. But the history recorded in the Old Testament records that they continually turned away to seek blessings from other places. When they thought Moses had died, they made a golden calf so that they could worship something they could see and touch. Today, we give our service to money to get nice houses, cars, and vacations because we can see and touch them and we believe that they will rescue us from discomfort. But they are not the Lord our God. When Israel was afraid of the nations around them, they even went back to Egypt, whose detestable things they had seen, to seek military protection rather than trusting the living God who had rescued them from the same Egyptians. We trust other gods from protection too: positive thinking will protect us from failure, finding the right person to be with will protect us from emptiness and loneliness. But they are not the Lord our God. When we turn from the living God who has already shown his faithfulness to you to cheap counterfeits, it leads only to death and destruction.

The second way God warns against abandoning the covenant is by living an irresponsible life. Verse 18-19 describes it like this: “Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit, one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’ This will lead to the sweeping away of the moist and dry alike.” There is a danger for people, when they hear the covenant, to count themselves as one of God’s people but walk in the stubbornness of their hearts. But it is clear that such a person is not safe from the wrath of God. Each person in the covenant community is responsible for their own walk before God. And yet, one person’s disobedience will lead to disaster for the whole community, the sweeping away of both the wet and the dry. So the covenant community is responsible for the obedience of each of its members. 

Maybe you attend a church weekly that believes all the right things. Maybe you’ve been assured your whole life that you’re a church person. Maybe you listen to the right music, wear the right clothes, and tell people you’re a Christian. But if your walk of obedience doesn’t match your profession of faith, that is a poisonous root that bears bitter fruit. God’s people are those who don’t just live as his people when others are around, but those who keep the covenant in their hearts. You cannot be saved by being part of the right church.

And this ought to be a serious warning to our community to exercise an affectionate and watchful care for one another’s souls. When God says he will sweep away the moist and the dry alike in Israel, he means that the whole community is accountable when one member turns away from the Lord. You’ve heard the expression, “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch.” That person is like a poisoned fruit, infecting the whole community. If you see a fellow church member whose life doesn’t match their profession of faith, now is the time to talk to them about it. Most people are thankful when you have that conversation with them! We have even more reason to be confident of that than the Israelites did, because we can trust that those in our community have received the Holy Spirit. But it is still a dangerous thing to live a double life. And if that person doesn’t turn back to the Lord, then bring in a trusted friend, and finally, if necessary, the whole congregation. Church discipline is meant to protect the bitter root from spreading. And God is clear what will happen if that root spreads in Israel: not only will all the curses of the book of the law will settle on the disobedient person, but the whole land will be burned out with fire and the people exiled from the land.

So, the people of Israel had every reason to live as God’s obedient covenant people – not only did they have a reminder of his faithfulness to them and to past generation, but they had a serious warning against disobedience. Yet, when God describes a future curse on the people if they are disobedient, he pronounces it with such certainty that he talks about it in the past tense as if it has already happened. “Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, bringing upon it all the curses written in this book”. And in Deuteronomy 30:1, God says, “And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse”. And indeed it so happened. The people obeyed God for a while and entered the land, driving out their enemies and receiving the promised blessing of living in the land. But their hearts turned away from him, and they turned to idols and were stubborn against him from the heart. So indeed they were overrun by foreign armies, suffering the curse of God, and taken out of the land to exile in Babylon. 

This reveals something about human nature. We don’t, most fundamentally, fall short of obedience because we don’t have enough information. They had the covenant and the law. We are disobedient because we don’t want to be obedient. Our eyes see and ears hear about God’s goodness, but we don’t understand in our hearts the absolute and overwhelming goodness of God towards us. We lack obedience because we lack love. 

It is in our nature to break the covenant – “we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. We have all turned away from Lord our God, who offers us the good life, and pursued other ways to be happy that have no life in them. Therefore, we are are under God’s curse. We are not only unable to keep the covenant by being obedient, but we are are already under the curse and unable to get out from under it. And those under God’s curse will not merely be removed from God’s land, but separated from him forever in hell.

And yet, God has revealed to us how we can keep the covenant and receive his blessing. Verse 29 summarizes the whole thrust of the passage: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” God has revealed everything we need in order to love him, resulting in a life of obedience: he has reminded us of his goodness towards us, given us all the information about how we are to live our lives in the law, and told us exactly what will happen if we disobey. God’s revelation to us does give us the ability to do all the words of the law. And yet, we do not do it, because our hearts do not understand, so we do not love God with our hearts. 

But when Moses spoke these words, the full revelation had not yet come. Hebrews 1: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has been revealed to us so that we can walk as his obedient children, and as Galatians 3:13 reveals, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” – so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.” On the cross, when Jesus hung on the tree, he “became a curse for us”. He lived the life of perfect obedience required of us, yet willingly bore the curse of God on sin that we deserved, so that there is no wrath left over for us. 

And now, we have received the promised Spirit through faith, through whom we have the ability to actually keep the law. Deuteronomy 30:6 gives us a preview of this promise, when God describes what will happen when his people, who are under the curse, turn from their sins and seek him again, and he forgives them. “And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” This is the command that Jesus says is the greatest, to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul. In the old covenant, circumcision was the mark of God’s covenant people. And now, God has marked out his people with a circumcision of the heart. God has circumcised the hearts of you who are repenting of your sins and trusting in Christ – he has given you a new heart, one that truly loves the Lord our God, and keeps his covenant, though imperfectly. Jesus Christ has removed the curse on us through his death, and he overcomes our lack of love as the Spirit of Christ dwells in us through faith so we can be covenant keepers.

The secret things belong to the Lord, but he has revealed in Christ everything that we need to fulfil the law through love. Now, we know God our Redeemer not just as the one who rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt, but as our Redeemer who rescued us from sin and the curse of the law. And because he loved us first, we can now live by the Spirit and love God from a sincere heart. Thanks be to God in Jesus Christ!

So how then are we to live, as those who have received the revelation that Christ is our redeemer? It’s still true: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” We have received a greater revelation than those standing before the Lord in Deuteronomy 29 – how much more ought we to walk as God’s obedient children! We have received the provision of his body broken for us, and the new covenant of his blood shed for us! How much more reason do we have not to turn to idols, but to worship our Redeemer and serve him with thanksgiving! How much more reason do we have not to walk in the stubbornness of our heart in our secret moments! We trust in God’s full revelation, Jesus Christ, the exact imprint of his nature, to empower our obedience from a sincere heart of love. 

We do not need to seek out the secret things that belong to God for obedience, because he has given us all we need in Christ. You do not need the next life hack to be obedient. You do not need other people to stop bringing you down. You do not need perfect self knowledge, or perfect Bible knowledge, or anything else. Let those secret things belong to the Lord. God has revealed everything we need for our obedience: that Christ has redeemed us from the curse, so we can worship him with a sincere thankfulness from our hearts that have been renewed by the Holy Spirit.

So let us, as God’s covenant people redeemed from the curse of the law by the Son according to the will of the Father, and empowered by the Spirit, walk as his people by being obedient to all that he has commanded, loving the Lord our God with all our heart and soul!