The Lord God, Merciful | Sunday, July 19, 2020

Before we step into the next section of Deuteronomy this morning, I want to begin with an encouragement. I want to commend you all as a church. This strange and historic moment we are living through presents us, as the people of God, with an opportunity to shine as lights in the world. This is precisely what Jesus taught His disciples to do in the Sermon on the Mount.

In Matthew chapter 5, we read, beginning at verse 14: "You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."

My prayer throughout this period of time has been that our church would do just that—that we would be like a city set on a hill, shining brightly to those who are in need of hope, grace, peace, forgiveness, love, joy, and all the other spiritual blessings we have from the Lord. And you are doing just that! I want to encourage you to continue to do so.

I encourage you to pray that God would give you the opportunity to shine today and this week. Pray that God would give you the eyes to see the opportunity when it comes and the faith to seize the opportunity when it arises.

I also want to encourage you, as we are halfway through July and therefore halfway through our 31 Days of Prayer, to keep going. Some of you have been working really hard over the last 19 days to social distance from social media and the news media. I know of a number of people who have actually deleted their social media accounts, and some of you have made it a goal to stay away from mass media news for this whole month.

If you have done that, even for just a few days here and there, I would love to hear how that has helped your outlook or your overall peace and joy. If it has, please give us your feedback by commenting on the daily posts at prayerminder.org. There are still almost two weeks left in this month, so if you haven't been following along with our 31 Days of Prayer, you can still jump on. Go to prayerminder.org and click the subscribe button.

Link in the upper right-hand corner and jump in. Also, listen to our weekly podcast called the Questions Podcast, which Pastor Mark and I have been recording for the last 18 months or so. This has been a lot of fun for me, and I think Mark would say the same thing. However, it's been a bit spotty over the last month. The craziness of this season has kept me from being as consistent as I should be, but we're not done with the Questions Podcast.

As we go through the Scriptures together, remember that if you have questions about what we're learning or about other scriptural, theological, or cultural issues, you can text your questions to 760-814-1223, and we'll answer them on the podcast. If you have not yet subscribed, go to the QuestionsPodcast.com, where you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify.

When Jesus was ministering in Galilee, Jerusalem, and Judea, a lot of His discipleship happened through questions and answers. Jesus would preach to the multitudes, and then people would come to Him after hearing His messages to ask questions for deeper understanding and instruction. One of the primary ways I have grown in my faith has been by bringing my questions to respected leaders in my life. If you want to grow in your faith, this is a really great place to start.

Discipleship in 2020 is definitely happening online, and a lot of it is occurring on YouTube and through podcasts. Evangelism is also happening online right now. On that point, I have two things that I want to share with you.

First, Cross Connection Church, you are an amazing church. I am so blessed by your faith and your faithfulness. I shared with you about five weeks ago how we are seeking to raise about forty thousand dollars to extend our broadcast outreach, and you have contributed above your normal tithes and offerings about ninety percent of that. Your faith and faithfulness are such a massive blessing to me and the other leaders of our church, so thank you for being such a strong witness. We are actively reaching people throughout the whole world online.

The second thing is that you can help us by sharing the content we're producing with others. Share these broadcasts.

They're available on YouTube at youtube.lifeinconnection.com and on our website at lifeinconnection.com. You can share them on social media or send a text to someone to share them. This is evangelism in 2020.

The Apostle Paul wrote to a younger disciple, Timothy, and said, "Fulfill your ministry; do the work of an evangelist." I know for a lot of people in our church and in other churches, the idea of evangelism can be frightening. But trust me, it is as easy as sharing what your church is doing online with others. If God has done a work of grace in your life, you need to share that with others.

This morning, we are in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, right about the middle of chapter four. In this section, we are speaking about the statutes and judgments of God as Moses is preparing the people of Israel for their progress into the Promised Land. Moses is at this point delivering his final words to Israel, reminding them of the principles, precepts, and stipulations of the covenant they have with God.

This is a very important section in Deuteronomy and an essential point in Israel's history. God promised to the father of Israel, Abraham, that he would be blessed with descendants and a land. He promised him that he would not only be blessed but that he would become a blessing to all people. However, these blessings were the result of a relationship with the one true God.

Again, this is necessarily essential for us to comprehend: God blesses those who are in a covenant relationship with Him, and He always does so for the purpose of extending that blessing to others. When we enter into a covenant relationship with God, we are blessed by Him to be a blessing to others. But these blessings are the result of the covenant relationship, and like with any covenant, there are stipulations and requirements.

Now, you and I have the free choice to not be in a covenant relationship with God. You don't have to enter into the covenant; that's your choice. But you cannot and will not enjoy the blessings associated with the covenant.

If you don't enter into the covenant, the problem is that we tend to want the enjoyments and pleasures of the blessings of the covenant without the covenant itself. That's not possible.

Listen, I may be losing you with all of this talk of covenant. We don't talk about covenant all that much in 2020. Really, there are only a couple of places in which the concept even comes up. First, if you have a house in a neighborhood that has a homeowner's association, then you probably received a big notebook of covenants, conditions, and restrictions. You probably never looked through it until you got a letter from your HOA telling you that you had left your trash cans out too long or that you can't paint your house orange.

The other place where we still speak about covenant in 2020 is in marriage. I think that those of you who are married would agree that there are benefits, blessings, enjoyments, and pleasures associated with the covenant of marriage. However, there are stipulations and requirements too. A lot of people in our culture want the pleasures without the covenant conditions and restrictions, and that's a problem.

Additionally, once you enter into the covenant, you are agreeing to uphold the stipulations and requirements of the covenant. If you don't, there are consequences. In this section of Deuteronomy, Moses is reminding the children of Israel, who were in a covenant relationship with God, of the stipulations and conditions of the covenant. If they remained in the covenant relationship and faithfully observed the conditions of the covenant, then they would enjoy the benefits and blessings of the covenant. But if not, they would experience the consequences and curses. We'll read a lot about those things when we get to the end of the book of Deuteronomy.

All of this is kind of a big introduction, I know, but it is an important introduction. Let me try to bring it all back around with a few points of application. Israel wanted to experience God's blessing and to extend that blessing to the world. I think that you and I want to experience and extend God's blessing too, but that's only possible through a covenant relationship with God. Therefore, the statutes and judgments of the covenant given in this section of Scripture are necessarily important.

Of the covenant, we began considering in our last study in Deuteronomy chapter 4. We'll see it again in Deuteronomy 5, and it is basically this: when in a covenant relationship, there can be no rival relationships. All of you married couples totally understand this. You agreed to the stipulations and conditions of your marital covenant when you said, "I do." The officiant of your wedding said, "Do you solemnly swear in the presence of God and these witnesses to forsake all others and to be faithful to him or to her as long as you both shall live?" And you said, "I do."

In a covenant relationship, there can be no rivals. In Deuteronomy chapter 5, verses 6 through 8, we read, "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 a carved image of any likeness of anything." I think that's fair; it makes total sense. God says, "I redeemed you. I brought you out of bondage in Egypt. I have taken care of you. I'm giving you an inheritance in the promised land. Here's my first stipulation: there can be no rivals. You shall have no other gods before me."

Why do we seem to have a hard time with that? Maybe in our flesh, we have a hard time with exclusivity and commitment. That's called sin—missing the mark of God's covenant. We need to confess and repent of that. But here's the problem: we know that we are prone to wander. We are, as we considered previously in our study last time, given to the subtle seduction of idolatry. We are so easily led away toward rivals.

So, I left you last time with a question: what can we possibly do if we happen to misrepresent God's glory through idolatry? That brings us to Deuteronomy chapter 4, beginning at verse 25. "When you beget children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, and act corruptly and make a carved image in the form of anything, and do evil in the sight of the Lord your God to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day."

You will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over to possess. You will not prolong your days in it, but you will be utterly destroyed. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. There, you will serve the gods, the work of men's hands—wood and stone—which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.

This section of Deuteronomy teaches us some very important truths as it relates to God, us, and our covenant with Him. In a covenant relationship, there can be no rivals. However, God anticipates our frailty in honoring our covenant. Israel is preparing to enter the Promised Land, and God reaffirms His covenant. He says, "You shall not have any other gods, nor shall you make any carved image of any likeness." In the same breath, He warns that after you come into the land and a couple of generations have passed, you are going to act corruptly and do exactly what I am telling you not to do. You will provoke Me to anger.

You made a vow before the witnesses of heaven and earth to be faithful to Me, and if you are not, then the only other alternative is that you will quickly and utterly perish from the land. The land is a blessing for those who adhere to the covenant, but if you reject the covenant, you will be expelled and exiled from the blessing of the land. You will be scattered to other nations, and there you will be engaged in adulterous idolatry.

Then what will be the end of the story? Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 29 states, "But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul." When you are in distress and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice, remember that 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 has sworn to them.

Our inability to honor God's covenant leaves us hopeless if God is not merciful. This point brings us into connection with what I believe is one of the most important concepts in all of the Old Testament—one of my absolute favorite passages in all of the Old Testament.

We read in verse 31, "For the Lord your God is a merciful God." When Moses used those words, he intended to call to mind an important memory in the minds of his hearers from their recent history. Nearly 40 years prior to this message, the children of Israel first entered into their covenant with God. The story is recorded for us at the beginning of Exodus chapter 19.

As the statutes and judgments of the law were first given, the people of God responded, saying, "All that the Lord has said we will do and be obedient." However, less than two months after vowing obedience, Israel was dancing around a golden calf, engaged in idolatry and immorality. God's anger was aroused, as I'm sure you can imagine. We read in Exodus 32 that the Lord said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore, let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and that I may consume them. I will make of you, Moses, a great nation."

So, why was Israel not consumed by the consuming fire of God's anger and wrath? Because Moses interceded and pleaded for grace for the people of Israel. As a result of all of this, God revealed His true nature to Moses and Israel in Exodus chapter 34. This passage is one of my favorites in all of Scripture. The Lord reveals something of His glory to Moses, but even more than the actual presence of God's glory, God gives to Moses His name and explains His nature in doing so.

Beginning at Exodus chapter 34, verse 5, we read, "Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's.'"

Children to the third and fourth generation. So, Moses made haste, bowed his head to the earth, and worshiped. Then he said, "If now I have found grace in Your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people. Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance."

I have so much that I want to say about these verses, and I will when we get into Deuteronomy chapter 5. But here, I want to leave you this morning with this essential point of Scripture, seen throughout the Old Testament and New: though we are frail and feeble by nature, God is merciful and gracious just the same. God's default nature is mercy. If it weren't, then you and I would have been consumed long ago.

Of all the innumerable attributes of God— and there truly are an innumerable amount of attributes— if you were to ask someone which one attribute God would place at the top of the deck, some people might say that God would place His holiness at the top, or His love. There are many different answers that people might give regarding what should be at the top. Yet here, in Exodus chapter 34, beginning in verse 6, God tells us what He places at the very front end of His attributes, how He introduces Himself. He says, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful."

That word "merciful" is so very important—so important for me, so important for you—because we are all deserving of the justice and judgment of God. One of the clearest things that you find as you study through the statutes and judgments of God, which we will be doing over the next several weeks as we go through Deuteronomy chapters 4, 5, and 6, is that we have all fallen short of God's glory. We are all deserving of God's wrath and justice. Every one of us has sinned, and the only thing that keeps us from the wrath and justice of God is His mercy and His grace.

So, it is such good news—what we would even call gospel—that God introduces Himself both in the Old Testament and in the New as "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful." Listen this morning as we prepare to...

As we close our time in the Scriptures, you may be in a place at this moment where you realize for the first time that you are in need of God's mercy. You have been trying to live according to some standard of rightness and righteousness, but you will never reach God's perfect standard of righteousness. This is one of the things that the law reveals.

In the New Testament book of Romans, Paul says that the law was given to show us that we are indeed sinners. When we are confronted with the realities of the law and the perfect righteous standard that God holds us to, we quickly realize that we will never measure up. Therefore, we are in desperate need of God's mercy and His grace. That is exactly what Jesus came to give two thousand years ago. By going to the cross, He took your sin and my sin upon Himself so that He could give to you His mercy and His grace.

Mercy is not getting what we deserve. We deserve justice; we deserve wrath. But God, in His mercy through Jesus Christ, does not give us the wrath that we deserve. Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin for us so that He would absorb God's righteous wrath upon Himself and be the substitute in our place. Mercy is not receiving what you deserve. All of us deserve God's justice and wrath, and instead, in Christ, He does not give that to us. He goes beyond that; He gives us grace. Grace is receiving the gift or the reward that we certainly do not deserve. Jesus gives us salvation and forgiveness by grace as we put our faith in Him.

I want to invite you this morning to put your faith in Jesus, to trust in Him, and to invite Him to come into your life. By His mercy and grace, He can forgive you of your sin. If you would like to do that, I would like to lead you in a very simple prayer. Prayer is simply talking to God. If this is the first time you have ever talked to God through prayer, all I am asking you to do is to admit that you have fallen short of God's perfect righteous standard and that you cannot save yourself.

Believe that Jesus died on the cross in your place for your sins and rose again to make you righteous. Confess your sin and call out to Him to come and live in your life and in your heart to forgive you of your sin. If you would like to do that, I would like to lead you in a prayer to do that right now. Just simply pray with me, wherever you are.

This very simple prayer of confession and faith:

Dear Jesus, I acknowledge and recognize that I can never meet your perfect, righteous standard. I thank you that you came to the earth to absorb wrath for me so that I could be forgiven and saved. Lord, I confess my sin to you. I pray that you would come into my life, forgive me, and save me. Help me to follow you by faith. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Listen, if you did that this morning, we want very much to know about it and to maybe send you a Bible if you need one. We also want to connect you to other believers so that you can begin to grow in your faith. Please go to the website commit.lifeincan and fill out the form to let us know that you've either given your life to the Lord for the first time or reaffirmed your faith in Jesus today. Don't worry; we won't spam you, I promise. But we would love to reach out to you and pray for you.

For the rest of you, may the Lord pour out a blessing upon you today. Let's close in prayer. God, thank you for your good word. I pray that the truths of your mercy, Lord, would compel us to share your mercy and grace with others. There are so many people that we know who are in need of your mercy and your grace. I pray, God, that you would stir us to extend it to others today and this week. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.

I cast my mind to Calvary, where Jesus bled and died for me. I see his wounds, his hands, his feet—my Savior on that cursed tree

In Joseph's tomb, the entrance sealed by a heavy stone, the Messiah still reigns.

Oh, praise the name of the Lord our God! Oh, praise His name forevermore! For endless days, we will sing Your praise, O Lord, O Lord our God.

He shall return in robes of white. The blazing sun shall pierce the night, and I will rise among the saints. My gaze transfixed on Jesus

Oh, praise the name of the Lord our God! Oh, praise His name forever.

Father, we thank You for the time that we've had today in worship and in the Scriptures. I pray, God, that You would continue to pour out Your Spirit and Your blessing upon Your church—not just the church that is a part of Cross Connection, but upon Your church that is all throughout San Diego County and all throughout the world.

Lord, we know that there are Christians gathering, even though they're not necessarily gathering in church buildings. They are gathering as the church to be united through Your Word and by Your Spirit today. We pray, God, that You would pour out Your Spirit and that You would do a reviving work and an awakening work in our culture and in our world.

Lord, it is my absolute conviction that You are the only answer that truly addresses the deep, difficult questions of life in a broken and fallen world. So, I pray, God, that You would stir...

Us to Lord, be bold to share those things with other people. We praise You, Jesus.

And now may the Lord bless and keep you. May He make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord 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.