Ask, Know, Keep | Sunday, August 16, 2020

Good morning, Cross Connection Church, and welcome to Church at Home. I'm coming to you once again from our church facility here after being at home for the last couple of weeks. It’s a little bittersweet as we gather together this morning. As I'm standing here in our sanctuary, there's a big part of me that wishes you were here as well. When I teach from this stage, I can kind of sense that you are here, even though you're not really present. I imagine that Rick and Holly are sitting back there in the back, and then Greg and Wendy over here, along with Bob and Gloria, John and Sandy, and Ed and Sue over there, and Dorothy. I kind of picture you all here, but unfortunately, you are not.

That said, we really look forward to gathering together as the church, the family of God, hopefully in the not-too-distant future. So please continue to pray that we will be able to gather together soon for church.

Now, before we cut over to Anthony and our worship team to worship together this morning, I would encourage you to send out a text to a friend or a group of friends and invite them to join us this morning. Just send them that link to live.cccchurch.com.

As we cut over to Pastor Anthony, let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for this day. God, we are just so grateful to have a God like You who is in control of our lives. Lord, You are a shelter; You are a refuge to run to. We ask that You would quiet our hearts this morning as we seek You and seek Your face. As we be still and know that You are God, we trust that You will do a work in us today. In Jesus' mighty name, we pray. Amen.

Let's worship. God is able; He will never fail.

He is Almighty God, greater than all we seek, greater than all we ask. He has done great things; He lifted up, He defeated the grave, and raised to life. Our God is able. In His name, we overcome, for the Lord our God is with us.

God is on our side. He has done great things; He lifted up, He defeated the grave, and raised to life. Our God is able. In His name, we overcome, for the Lord our God is with us.

He will go before us; He will never leave us. God is for us; He has open arms. He will never fail us; no, He will never fail us. God is with us. He will go before us; He will never leave us. God is for us; He has opened His arms.

He will never fail us. He will never give up. He defeated the grave and was raised to life. Our God is able, and in His name, we overcome. For the Lord our God is able to lift Him up. He defeated the grave, and we overcome, for the Lord our God is able.

Hey, Cross Connection! Welcome, and thanks for tuning in today to Church at Home. I'm Pastor Garrett. I'm only sitting behind this drum set because I was trying to think of ways to drum up some new ideas for announcements, but I couldn't really come up with anything. So, anyways, welcome, and thanks for tuning in today.

Here at Cross Connection Church, we're all about living life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus Christ. One of the greatest ways that we can live life in connection is through prayer. I can't encourage you enough to be praying this week. In fact, we would love to get your prayers for anything that's going on this week or throughout the year. You can go on our website anytime at prayer.lifeinconnection.com and send us your prayer requests.

Know that right when you send that prayer request, you have a team of people that loves you and is praying for you right then and there. We see God answer so many prayers here at Cross Connection Church, so go ahead and check it out at prayer.lifeinconnection.com.

For all other points of connection here at Cross Connection Church, to get to know the team and what we're doing, and for any updates, check out Life in Connection, our homepage. You'll find all the other information you need there.

We are on mission this week, and we're going to be asking you to pray for Luke and Kristin Ryder, who are working in Mozambique, Africa.

They are doing an amazing work. Their primary focus is to share the gospel with unreached people groups. This means training up indigenous people and sending them out into communities and places that have not heard the gospel yet. Please be praying for them. They are witnessing a significant move of the Spirit and seeing many people transformed by the power of Christ as they receive Him. It is truly awesome what they are doing. Pray for Luke and Kristin Ryder in Mozambique, Africa, this week.

In just a moment, we will be joining back with Pastor Anthony and the worship team. We will be singing another song in worship together. This is a time that I want to ask us to set aside to worship the Lord with our giving. There are a couple of different ways that you can do that. If you call Cross Connection Church your home church, you can go to give.lifeinconnection.com. You can also text the number 84321 on your cell phones. Lastly, you can simply mail in your offering to 1675 Seven Oaks Road, which is our church address here in Escondido, California.

With that, God bless you all. We will catch you next week. Who am I that the highest King would welcome me? I was lost, but He brought His love for me. Indeed, Jesus died for me.

I am who you say I am. There's a place free; who is free indeed? I'm a child of God, yes, I am. Thank you so much, Father, that you picked each of us to be your children. God, we are so thankful and so blessed. We're here to serve you and to share your name. Lord, we love you so much. Please speak to us today, and we praise you, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.

In September of 2001, three other leaders and I at our church ended up working with the Red Cross and the Billy Graham Association in New York City shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That was the first time I had been in New York City, and it's hard to describe the city to someone who has never been in a city like New York, especially under the circumstances of the Trade Center attacks.

I grew up here in San Diego. By the time I went to New York in 2001, I had been to downtown San Diego, Los Angeles, and even lived in London as a child. However, New York City is an amazing city. Manhattan is pretty phenomenal; everywhere you look, it is end-to-end high-rise buildings. Additionally, New York truly is the city that never sleeps. It is a mash of every possible culture, with access to virtually every kind of food at virtually every hour of the day.

I'll never forget one of the days that we were in the city. We started our day in lower Manhattan, near where the Trade Center had been. This was very shortly after the attack, and the power wasn't even fully on in lower Manhattan. There was an eerie silence in lower Manhattan, other than the sound of generators and power washers. They were still power washing the dust off of the buildings from the collapse of the Trade Center on the adjacent buildings. The smell in the air was one that you just can't forget, mostly an acrid smell of burnt plastics and electronics.

I spent part of that morning talking with a man down in Battery Park at the very tip of Manhattan. He had watched the buildings fall from the same spot in the park, and he described the scene to me. After our morning in lower Manhattan, we walked back up to Midtown, to Times Square. The difference between lower Manhattan and Midtown on that day was striking. Lower Manhattan looked and smelled like a depressing war zone, while Midtown, on the other hand, looked like an upscale chaotic mall. Everything in Midtown seemed to be business as usual.

As we were in Times Square on that September day, I saw something—or should I say someone—who hadn't really gained much notoriety yet but was like the epitome of Times Square, New York City: the Naked Cowboy. Many of you probably know about the Naked Cowboy. He can very often be found in Times Square, clothed in nothing but his white cowboy boots, a white cowboy hat, whitey tighties, and of course, his guitar. Right after my astonishment at seeing the Naked Cowboy, we...

We were walking back down to our hotel when a guy stumbled out of the door right in front of me and lost his lunch a few feet away on the sidewalk. I turned to one of the guys who was with me and said, "Well, I think I've seen it all." 2020 is one of those "I think I've seen it all" moments, isn't it?

Let's consider some of the things that we've seen this year: a presidential impeachment in the House of Representatives, COVID-19, toilet paper and bottled water shortages, a national shutdown of pretty much all of life, and professional sports effectively on hold. Now we have cardboard cutouts of fans in the stands of Major League Baseball games, chaotic protests and riots in the wake of racially charged incidents of violence, and efforts to defund the police. There was also the explosion of more than 5 million pounds of ammonium nitrate in Beirut, Lebanon, just a couple of weeks ago.

School is about to start, but not really, and now we are beginning the ramp-up of what will no doubt be an all-absorbing political circus in the U.S. over the next two and a half months. Who knows the chaos that will result when the dust settles on November 4th? This has truly been a chaotic year, and just when you think that you've seen it all, a naked cowboy is bound to show up. We'll call it the October surprise, no doubt.

Hey, if Jesus decided to return right now, I don't think that any of us would object at all. This is our 23rd Sunday under lockdown as a church. That means that Labor Day weekend, which is just a few weeks away, will officially mark half a year of church online. When this began on March 15th, I anticipated that it would be two or three weeks at the most. I thoroughly expected that we would be gathered in our church facility for Palm Sunday on April 5th. Then I expected for sure we would be together for Easter on April 12th, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and the Fourth of July.

Just when you think that you've seen it all, another naked cowboy shows up. In all of this, I want to encourage you: God is still on the throne. He is still actively working in and through His church, through our church. He remains.

Faithful still, we continue to trust Him, and we will continue to seek to remain faithful to Him. Why? That's really a good question. Why do you continue to have faith in God? Why do you remain faithful to Him through the ups and downs of life? Why continue in faith and faithfulness?

The passage we are currently in, in Deuteronomy chapter 4, is a passage in which God is calling His people, Israel, to continue in faith and faithfulness. He is calling them to trust and obedience. He is calling them to devotion and loyalty to Him and the covenant that they had entered into with Him. This section of Scripture contains the statutes and judgments of God's covenant with Israel. In fact, the bulk of this book, Deuteronomy, is the statutes and judgments of the covenant—the stipulations and the terms of the covenant relationship that God had with Israel.

Those of you who are married probably remember back to when you vowed to maintain the stipulations of your covenant to your spouse. The traditional Western marriage vows or declaration of intent goes something like this: "In the presence of God and these witnesses, I take you as my lawfully wedded wife to love, honor, and cherish in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow, in adversity as well as in prosperity, forsaking all others to be faithful unto you as long as we both shall live." If you're married, you probably remember saying something like that. In good times and in bad times, you promised to be loyal and faithful.

Israel did that. God pledged to be faithful to them, and from what we know of God in the Scriptures, He is faithfulness embodied, if such a thing can even be. God pledged to be Israel's God and to bless them, and then He called them to faithfulness and devotion as well. They said, "All the words which the Lord has said we will do" (Exodus 24:3). In essence, Israel said "I do" twice. In Exodus 24:7, we read, "Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, 'All that the Lord has said we will do and be obedient.'" Those of you that have read the book of Exodus know that Israel...

Committed spiritual adultery through immoral idolatry less than 50 days after making that declaration. Now, one of the complaints about the Old Testament revelation of God is that He is harsh, despotic, ruthless, mean, and merciless. That, of course, isn't what we find when we actually read the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. God's response to Israel's spiritual adultery is to act with mercy, which is really good to know. God is merciful when we fail. That sure is a blessing, isn't it? Because I don't know anyone who doesn't fail.

Exodus 34 says that He is merciful, gracious, patient, and forgiving. He forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. We'll talk another time about what exactly that means, but regardless, the definitions show that all of us have committed iniquity, transgression, and sin, and God is merciful when we fail. We considered that a few weeks ago in Deuteronomy 4, verse 31. There we read, "For the Lord your God is a merciful God; He will not forsake you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them."

Now, it is worth remembering that this passage of Scripture is the result of Moses reminding Israel of these things nearly 40 years after they happened. He is doing so because Israel is about to enter into the blessing that God had promised to them hundreds of years prior, when their father Abraham first began following God by faith. At that time, God said to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12, verses 1 through 3, "Get out of your country, from your family, and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

A few years after God made that promise to Abraham, He repeated it, saying, "Look now toward heaven and count the stars if you are able to number them." He said to him, "So shall your descendants be. I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to inherit."

When God made those promises to Abraham, Abraham trusted God. Now, more than 400 years later, those promises are being fulfilled here in Deuteronomy chapter 4.

That's all well and good, but one of the questions we are sometimes confronted with is: Did any of this really happen, and why does this even matter to me? In answer to the first question, the most complete history we have of these things is Scripture. So, in a sense, we do take it on faith that the things recorded in Scripture are histories that actually happened. Additionally, the preponderance of historical and archaeological evidence continues to support and substantiate the happenings of Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

But again, why does any of this matter to us? First, let me say that between the time God made the promise to Abraham and its fulfillment here in Deuteronomy, some 400 years later, there were a lot of failures. God never failed Israel, but Israel and their fathers sure failed God. However, God is merciful when we fail. I think some of you really need to hear that this morning.

One of the byproducts of the 2020 COVID-19 shutdown has been a return to a lot of things you thought you had left in the past. Statistically speaking, the shutdown has been a boon for alcohol sales, marijuana usage, illicit prescription drug use, pornography, and many other vices. We would be foolish to assume that such things weren't affecting Christians too. The isolating effects of this shutdown have been awful.

Can I remind you again that God is merciful when we fail? If you feel like you're not where you should be with the Lord right now in your relationship with Him, He is mercifully waiting for you to turn to Him in faith.

So, Moses in this passage is working to drive this truth into the hearts and minds of God's people. Why? Because he knows that they are going to fail again, and it is his desire that when they fail, they will turn back to God in repentance, seeking His mercy. You see, one of the devastating realities of iniquity, transgression, and sin, which God mercifully forgives, is that these things have a compounding effect.

In our lives, when we fall short of God's statutes and fail in our faith and faithfulness, we have a tendency to persist in a downward spiral. We hide from God and try to conceal our sin. We lie about it and attempt to shift blame and responsibility for it. As a result, we spiral down toward more iniquity, transgression, and sin. The more we engage in this behavior, the more we believe that we cannot come back to God. We begin to experience what the Scriptures refer to as condemnation. In this spiraling cycle, we start to think that it is easier to remain in the sin cycle than to repent and return to God.

This is precisely what we see in the first illustration of sin in Genesis chapter 3 with Adam and Eve. However, God's desire is that His people would live in connection with Him, enjoying the benefits and blessings of that connection. Therefore, Moses says in Deuteronomy chapter 4, beginning at verse 32, "For ask now concerning the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth. Ask from one end of heaven to the other whether any great thing like this has happened or anything like it has been heard. Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire as you have heard and lived? Or did God ever try to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?"

To you, it was shown that you might know that the Lord Himself is God, and that there is none other besides Him. Out of heaven, He let you hear His voice that He might instruct you on earth. He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire. Because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them. He brought you out of Egypt with His presence and with His mighty power, driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you to bring you in, to give you their land as an inheritance, as it is this day.

Moses says, "I want you to remember what God has done for you. I want you to search throughout history."

And see, has there ever been anything like this? Have you ever heard of the gods of other nations doing what your God has done for you? Did the gods of Egypt ever do anything like this? How about the gods of the Moabites or Ammonites, the Philistines, or the Canaanites?

What did God do for Israel? God in heaven came down to Egypt to rescue His people from bondage. They heard His voice; they beheld His presence in the form of fire, by plagues, signs, wonders, and war. His mighty hand and outstretched arm brought down Egypt with great terrors before their eyes. The people saw this.

Why did God do this? Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 35 says, "To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord Himself is God; there is none other besides Him." There is mercy and deliverance, and no other. There are other things to which you can trust and give devotion; there are other gods, small g, but no other brings mercy and deliverance. In fact, the other things that you can trust in and be devoted to are cruel taskmasters that bring bondage.

Why is Moses making this point? Because if you look back a few verses, you'll see that God's first statute is this: Deuteronomy chapter 4, beginning at verse 23, says, "Take heed to yourselves lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and you make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God."

We'll see this stipulation again when we consider the commandments in full in chapter 5. Deuteronomy 5, beginning at verse 6, states, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself any carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands to those..."

Who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

Now, it's one thing to say you shall have no other gods and that you shall not make any idols, as the commandments do, but it is beneficial to give the why. God is merciful when we fail, and there is mercy and deliverance in no other. Why would you trust Him or be devoted to any other? Therefore, know this day and consider in your heart that the Lord Himself is God in heaven above and on earth beneath; there is no other. He alone provides what we desperately need.

Why should we continue in faith and faithfulness to the Lord? Why was it beneficial for Israel to do so 3,400 years ago? Yes, there are blessings for those that do so, and yes, there are judgments and curses for those that don't. But more than that, the Lord alone is God, both in heaven and on earth, and there is no other. Why trust in or be devoted to any other? He alone is God.

We don't remain in faith and faithfulness merely for blessings, though there are blessings. We don't continue to trust and obey because there are judgments if we don't, though that is true. The judgment or judgments are, in effect, the absence of His blessing. But more than all of that, we continue in faith and faithfulness to God because God alone is God; He alone is all that we need.

Thus, Moses says, "Know this and consider it in your heart." That's something to think about this week. Every other thing that you've ever been devoted to or trusted in, other than God, has ultimately left you dry, despairing, and in bondage: alcohol, money, sex, drugs, power, possessions, achievement. The gods of this world are many, and they are lacking.

Therefore, know and consider that God alone provides what you desperately need and are searching for. You shall therefore keep His statutes and His commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time. Now, it is holy and unreservedly true.

We ought to remain faithful to God and maintain faith in Him because He alone is God and He alone has all that we need. It is also true that God gives life and blessings to those who keep His statutes and commandments. Now, His statutes and commandments do not bring our salvation, but they do invite His blessing. This is part of the reason why we're studying through this section of Scripture. As we will see in the coming weeks and months, these things in the law of God—what we find in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—will not ultimately bring salvation.

One of the things we'll consider in our study next time is that these laws actually reveal just how imperfect we are, but they direct us to the only one who can ultimately give us blessing. They direct us to the Lord, who is the one who fulfills the law and gives salvation.

Before we finish today, I want to speak to those of you who have tried to live according to the law. You've tried to keep the commandments, maybe the Ten Commandments, which is exactly what we're going to be looking at over the next several weeks. You may have realized that you fall short of those commandments. That is exactly what the New Testament says the purpose of the law is. In Romans chapter 4 and Romans chapter 7, we find that the law is our signpost, our schoolmaster. Galatians says this as well; it brings us to Christ to show us how much we need a Savior.

Maybe you've been trying to live your life according to some standard, some moral list of rules, and you're not able to do it. This is exactly as it should be because we are all fallen. We are all filled with iniquity, transgression, and sin, and only Jesus can bring forgiveness.

So, if that's you today and you've been trying to live your life by your good works, hoping that those will one day stack up greater than your bad works and failures, I want you to know that this will not save you. Only Jesus can save you, and He calls you to turn to Him—for salvation, for forgiveness. If that's you today and you'd like to turn to the Lord for forgiveness, I want to invite you to do that and to receive the salvation.

Forgiveness that Jesus gives you is something I cannot fulfill on my own. I cannot fulfill God's law, but Jesus did. He who knew no sin took your failures, your iniquity, transgression, and sin upon Himself on the cross 2,000 years ago. He bore the punishment for your sin so that you could receive His righteousness.

How do you receive His righteousness? By turning to Him in faith and calling out to Him in prayer, asking Him to forgive you of your sin. If you'd like to do that this morning, I want to lead you in a very simple prayer. Wherever you're at, you can bow your head and close your eyes if you want to, but you don't have to. Just talk to God where you're at; He hears you.

I will lead you in a very simple prayer. If you'd like to do that right now, just pray along with me:

Dear Jesus, I recognize that I cannot be perfect by my own strength. I understand that I have fallen short of Your perfect standard. But I thank You, Jesus, that You lived a perfect life, died in my place on the cross, and rose again on the third day. I ask that You would come into my life, forgive me of my sin, and help me to follow You by faith. In Jesus' name, Amen.

If you did that this morning, we would very much like to know about your commitment to the Lord and your prayer to receive Him today, or maybe to recommit your life to Him. If you could just go to the website commit.lifeinconnection.com and fill out the form to let us know about your commitment today, we promise we won't spam you. We would love to hear about your decision to follow Jesus and maybe even send you a Bible or direct you on how you can begin to grow in your walk with the Lord.

In just a moment, Pastor Anthony is going to lead us in one more song of worship. But before he does, let's go ahead and close our time today in the Scriptures in prayer. I want to encourage you to read through the remainder of Deuteronomy chapter 4 this next week. We will be finishing up this chapter and going into chapter 5 in the coming weeks, where we will be looking at the law of God. It would be very important for you to refresh your memory about what the Ten Commandments are in that passage.

Let's close our time together in prayer. Lord Jesus, thank You so much.

For the fact that you, just as we were considering, took our sin upon yourself so that we could have a right relationship with you. You are the one that reconciles us and restores us back to a proper relationship with God, our Father in heaven.

Father, I pray that we would be filled with the joy of that relationship and that we would be able to extend it to others as we interact with co-workers, family members, and friends. Whoever we are interacting with during this socially distanced time, I pray, God, that you would shine through us with your grace and your truth to others. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

There’s nothing worth more that will ever come close. Nothing can compare to your living home. I’ve tasted and seen of the sweetest of loves when my heart becomes free and my shame is under your presence.

Holy Spirit, you are welcome here. Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere. Your glory, God, is what our hearts long for, to be overcome by your

There's nothing worth more that will ever come close. Nothing can compare. I have tasted and seen of the sweetest of loves when my heart becomes free and my shame is undone.

Holy Spirit, You are welcome here. Your glory, God, is what our hearts long for. Let us become more aware of Your presence. Let us experience the glory of Your goodness. Let us become more aware of Your presence.

Your glory, Lord, your praises. God, we thank you that even though we are apart this morning, your Holy Spirit draws us into your presence, and we can rejoice in the fellowship that we have as the body of Christ. Even though we're scattered in homes throughout the county, I want to pray for our nation and for our leaders as we get ready to close our time today.

It is clear that we were thinking about this some weeks, actually months ago, in Deuteronomy, regarding the importance of having wise and understanding leaders. I believe we were even looking at that in Deuteronomy before we started this lockdown, and it's more clear than ever just how important it is for us to have wise, understanding, and knowledgeable leaders.

So, I pray, God, for our leaders, whether they're on the left or the right, whether they have a "D" or an "R" after their names. We are all in this nation, one nation, and it is certain that whatever the political affiliation, we need leaders who have wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.

God, would you do a work of giving our leaders wisdom and directing them into truth, especially as we go into the second half of this very chaotic and tumultuous year? Be with your church, be with your people wherever they are right now. Encourage them by your word and by the presence of your Spirit, and may your joy be our strength.

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you. May He make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May He lift up His countenance upon you and give you His peace. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

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