June 17, 2024; Day 2 of Week 12

Daily Dose of Hope

June 17, 2024

Day 2 of Week 12

Scripture: Deuteronomy 10-14; Psalm 5; Luke 8

Welcome back to the Daily Dose of Hope, the daily devotional and podcast that complements New Hope Church’s Bible reading plan.  We have a lot of Scripture to cover today so let’s get started.  We are going to start by walking through the passages in Deuteronomy chapter by chapter. 

Let’s start with Deuteronomy 10.  What does God ask of his people?  He asks them to be obedient.  The Lord of all, the one who put the stars in the sky and put the planets into motion, is the same God who chose Israel to be his people.  He has chosen to reveal himself to a particular group of people, the Israelites.  There wasn't anything particularly special about the people.  Afterall, they were people like you and me.  They messed up and sinned over and over again.  Their brokenness was evident.  But God chose this group of people to call his own. The one who created the entire cosmos was the one who showed up among this stiff-necked people. 

This chapter gives us a glimpse into the heart of God. Though he is Lord of Lords, all powerful and all knowing, he is also the God who cares about the orphans, the widows, and the oppressed.  He has chosen a particular group of people to form into a holy nation.  Though they are a mess and he often gets frustrated with them, he continues to be faithful.  How have you seen the faithfulness of God in your own life?

Now, let’s move on to chapter 11.  Heartfelt obedience would be required for the people of God to drive out the people groups currently residing in the promised land.  Simply going through the motions, engaging in religious ceremony, and professing faith would not be enough.  They needed to seek relationship with God through love, obedience, and steadfastness.  When they did this, all the land would be theirs.  Obviously, our circumstances are different. 

Obviously, we live on the other side of the cross under a new covenant. But as people, are we all that different? Don't we also simply go through the motions sometimes, professing religious faith but not really loving God?  How often do we engage in religious ritual without connection and obedience to a holy God?  After thousands of years, God is still seeking an intimate relationship with us, one that is marked with love, obedience, and steadfastness.  He wants to be the center of our lives.  Take some time today and think about the Israelites, just as they are on the cusp of entering the promised land. How are you different from them?  How are you similar?

Chapter 12 offers some more review of how the Israelites are to worship.  After commanding the removal and destruction of idols, we now move on to where and how God must be worshiped.  The worship of the one true God was to look very different from the worship of pagan idols.  It was to be in a place chosen by God himself.  It was to be in one place alone and there God would take up residence.  This would be God's tabernacle, his temple, among his people. 

Throughout the Old Testament, God dwells in a specific place. His presence is found in the tabernacle and then eventually the temple in Jerusalem.  Obviously, God is omnipotent and can be everywhere all at once.  But for his people, that specific place was holy.  It was a beautiful picture of God's presence among them. 

When Jesus came, he became the temple.  He was the very presence of God.  Once Jesus ascended to heaven, the Holy Spirit was given to the church.  Now, the presence of God resided within the people.  If you have said yes to Jesus, then the Spirit of the Living God lives within you!  I find it amazing and spectacular how God continues to do a new thing among his people.  Now, we can definitely say that the presence of God is here with us. We don't have to go to a specific building.  God's presence is closer than our very breath.  There is no place we can go where God's presence is not.

Chapter 13 presents several scenarios about what to do if strangers, loved ones, or whole communities tried to tempt them to worship other gods.  No matter who does the tempting, the answer is always the same.  Don't do it and get rid of the culprit, even if it is a loved one.  No one is allowed to tempt them to worship false gods.  The consequences for doing so should be swift and severe. 

God clearly knows his people.  He knows they will be tempted to worship false idols. If we look at the course of Biblical history, idolatry was eventually the undoing of the Israelites.  Most of us have a hard time imagining bowing down to a medal statue representing a god or a golden altar to some false deity.  And yet, we have to be very careful here.  Our false gods are less obvious but still present.  Far be it from us to think we are somehow better than the Israelites.  After all, we worship money, power, technology, sports, our children's activities, our own hobbies, and our own families, among many other things. Anything at all that we put before God is an idol and if we are honest, we put a lot before God.  What kinds of things are you tempted to put before God?  How can you reprioritize your life to right this wrong?

And finally, chapter 14.  Most of this chapter details the food laws and tithing.  But why are there specific rules regarding which foods the Israelites could eat?  Well, because they are the children of God, a holy people, and God chose them to be set apart from the other people groups of the world.  The separation between pure and impure animals simply is a reflection of the separation that God's people have with the rest of the world.  God is clearly forming a unique people.  We've discussed this whole idea of holiness before but it certainly bears repeating.  Holiness means being unique and set apart.  Something that is holy is cut off from other things, in a class of its own.  But that which is holy is also morally pure. 

One of the defining characteristics of God is his holiness.  God is both totally pure and without sin and also like nobody else, in a class separate from all other classes. God called on the Israelites to become a holy people, set apart from all the people groups of the world.  It says in Lev. 19:2, "...Be holy because I, the Lord God, am holy."  They were to look differently, act differently, and be morally pure.  Obviously, the Israelites were not going to be without sin because they were human beings but they were to make every attempt to avoid sin and atone for their sins regularly.

So where does that leave us? In the New Testament, the Greek word for holy is hagios and it comes from the same root word as saint or sanctified.  Just as Jesus Christ is holy, we as his followers are also to seek holiness.  I Peter 1:14-16 reads, "As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.  But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;  for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”  In New Testament language, being holy is also to be set apart but not to be separate, to be in the world but not of it.  Our lives are to be characterized by holiness: we are to look different from the culture around us, we are to seek moral purity, and work toward sanctification.  To be sanctified is to become more and more like Jesus. One might even go so far as to say that to become holy is to become like Jesus.  Do you think of your life as holy?  Why or why not?

Be sure to read the Psalm today but we aren’t going to have much discussion around it.  It is another Psalm of David.  He is once again pleading with God for protection against enemies and for God to bless the righteous.  What are your thoughts about David’s big ask?

Let’s move on to Luke 8.  There is so much great stuff in this chapter.  There is no way that I can touch on all of it.  We have some pretty significant healings – the bleeding woman, the sick girl, and the man filled with demons.  Jesus also calms the storm, leaving his disciples almost speechless, “Who is this man, they ask?”  But I want to spend just a little time on the parable.

This is the parable of the sower.  Jesus says that a farmer goes out to sow seeds.  But the farmer doesn’t worry so much about where he is throwing the seeds. He seems to be pretty indiscriminate with his seed-throwing.  He is literally just throwing seed everywhere.  Some of the seed falls right on the path, where all the people walked and the soil was hard and had been packed down.  The birds ate most of that seed.  Some of the seed fell in rocky places (there are lots of rocky places in that part of the world) and while it would sprout, the soil was shallow, and there wasn’t enough root for the plant to survive.  Some fell among thorns, and the thorns were invasive and took over. The plants had no real chance of survival there.  But then some seeds fell on good soil, which produced an amazing crop---100, 60, or 30X what was sown.  So, here’s the question:  what is Jesus trying to teach us here?

First, I think it’s important for us to not dwell on the different kinds of soils too much.  I think one of our first temptations is to go, I know someone who is like that soil, and then that group of people are like this soil, and so forth.  We’ll get to the soil but I want us to start with what is most important.  Who is the star of the story?  Well, the farmer or the one who is sowing the seed.  He throws that seed everywhere–he is generous with the seed, throwing it everywhere there is any chance it might take root.  Friends, we are the sowers.  We are the ones called to throw seed. What’s the seed we are supposed to be throwing around?   Well, the Good News of Jesus Christ of course. 

Jesus is calling us to sow extravagantly.  We aren’t supposed to decide who to share our faith with.  No, we are truly to share our faith, in word and deed, with everyone. This is so important.  We aren’t just supposed to share Jesus with those in our congregation, with our friends who are “safe.”  We are supposed to be kind of reckless, sharing the love of Jesus Christ, sharing our faith story, telling people the source of our hope, with all kinds of people: people who don’t look like us, people who we don’t know and people we do know.  If God has brought us to a certain place, a certain store, a certain vacation spot, a certain meeting---we trust that there is a greater purpose.

Another thing we learn is that God gives up on no one and neither should we.  We just keep sowing.  As the sower, we truly have the desire for all the soil to bear fruit.  That’s why we keep throwing those seeds, having those conversations, offering to pray for someone, telling people how much Jesus loves them.  God loves all people, we are called to love all people.  Remember that love of God and love of others cannot be separated. They are intricately linked.

But we have to recognize that some soil has had people trample on it. It has not been nourished, it might be filled with rocks.  It may take years to get to the point in which the soil can bear fruit. I read that to gets soil just right, really nourished, it can take years.  And it usually means continuing to add nourishment to it, continuing to add things to it to develop it and enrich it so that it can be fruitful.  People are no different. We love on people, we pray for them, we tell them Jesus loves them.  We listen to their stories. We ask questions. And this could go on for years.  But we don’t give up on anyone because God doesn’t give up on anyone.  We trust that God is at work in ways we can’t see or understand. We trust that God is working behind the scenes to nourish the fields, to strengthen the roots.

Is there someone you have given up on?  Remember, God isn’t done with any of us yet!

For the rest of this week, friends, you will hear Pastor Lavetta.  She is completing this week for me.  She is absolutely wonderful and I know you will be blessed.  You will hear from me again on Sunday.

Have a wonderful day!

Blessings,

Pastor Vicki