Deuteronomy 31 | Courage in Faithless Times | Alex Culpepper

And we can turn our attention now to the passage this morning, Deuteronomy, chapter 31. So leadership transitions are incredibly vulnerable times. So point leadership is a key aspect of how most groups are able to maintain stability and to stay together. And in particular, spiritual communities, times of leadership transition carry a lot of tenderness and concern. People are grieving the leader that they lost, and then there's uncertainty about what the new leader will be like and what kind of things are we going to do and what's going to happen?

And for what it's worth, this is why kings were so popular. Because, you know, a king could be in place for a really long time, right? And then potentially even like, then the king has a successor who is often in their family. And the theory is at least that the. The one who is in the family will resemble their father, right?

And so this, this idea of keeping leadership within one family, you know, it creates some kind of stability. It comes from this desire of like, hey, we want a one reliable, strong leader who we can trust. And you should also know this as well. This is why there's so much real estate in the United States Constitution given to explaining what the peaceful transfer of power should look like. The reason that exists is because the way things are set up for us, we have a high turnover rate in our point leadership position, the position of president, right.

Every four, if not every eight years, we expect to see a new person in that role. And this, when it originated, that was an incredibly unusual thing that a nation would function like that. And so there'd be a lot of things written down to make sure that there was more stability for the country in those times of transition. So whether you're talking about a small business or an organization or a community or a church or a nation, leadership transitions always require a lot of watchfulness and attentiveness and care. And for spiritual communities, I think it's a time too, in leadership transition where the enemy knows that the vulnerability exists, and so he takes advantage of those opportunities.

And for God's nation, their very first kind of leadership transition after they have been constituted as a nation, going to take a land, their very first leadership transition was imminent. And so today we are starting a new series called the Death of Moses. We've been through kind of big chunks of the first five books of the Bible over the last several years. In 2020, we started the book of Exodus 20:23, we did Leviticus, and it was awesome. And we talked about blood and sacrifices and all of that good stuff.

And. And this past summer, we, we started through the Book of Numbers and. And we finished up with Numbers. We're now heading into Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is the next Old Testament book, but we're not going to do it like we've done the others.

The reason for that is a lot of stuff that's written in Deuteronomy is written earlier on in the Old Testament, earlier on in the previous four books. And so we're not going to go through it in a traditional sense because it's like just rearticulating things. However, in the new year, we're going to look at some. We'll spend a series. We're going to look at four key lessons or teachings from the Book of Deuteronomy.

And then after that, we're going to actually do a series looking at Jesus in Deuteronomy. Because you may or may not know this, but the Book of Deuteronomy is the book that Jesus most quotes. When Jesus has a quote to give, he's quoting primarily from the Book of Deuteronomy. But this series is focused on Moses and how he handles leadership transition in God's nation. It's interesting.

The Book of Deuteronomy essentially functions a bit like a sermon from Moses. He's kind of laying down, he's taking the thoughts and stuff that God has given to them, and he's putting this in front of the people of Israel to prepare them for the reality of his transition. And there are some incredible lessons to learn from Moses as he deals with these realities in a kind of a very public and vulnerable way in front of God's people. So before we look at our whole passage, I just want to draw your attention to one particular theme for this moment in history for the Israelites. Deuteronomy 31:6 says, Be strong and courageous.

The word strong is this call to God's people. It literally means to get a firm grip. So when I did a little bit of wrestling in high school, my dad taught me, because he was a wrestler when he was in high school, he taught me the right way to grip that you would normally think, like, if you were going to hold somebody, that the way that you want to grip them is. Is like this, where your thumbs are like on the outside and you hold your hands together like that. But there's a problem with that, which is that the muscles in your thumbs are incredibly weak.

And so when you put your thumbs on the outside of the grip, it actually makes a much weaker grip. And so you want to put your thumbs on the inside kind of like this, where your hands wrap around each other. And the purpose of that is you actually, when you grip like that, you activate your most resilient, most strong muscles so that they're the ones that are doing all the work for maintaining the grip. You want to have a firm grip. You want to hold on to things that are strong and true.

So that is what this be strong is about. But then it says to be courageous. And that word courageous is telling you to brace yourself, literally, like stiffen your spine, mentally prepare yourself for danger. That's what these. These two words together mean.

And so if we could just kind of pull out what God is calling his people to when he says be strong and courageous. He's saying, dig deep, brace yourself, grip onto something strong, right? Grip onto God's promise and act boldly. Everything that takes place from here is going to call for incredible courage from God's people. It's going to call for incredible courage from Moses.

It's going to call for incredible courage for Joshua, who's going to take Moses place. Because the season that they are in right now is a really heavy season, right? And they're dealing with the death of Moses and the leadership transition that takes place. And they're getting ready to go in and fight many battles in the conquest of the land. And this is going to be filled with tears and tough decisions and gigantic demands.

And so as they walk into this heavy and difficult season of transition and loss, they need to dig deep and to brace themselves and to grip on to God's promise and prepare themselves to take some bold. And so this is what we're going to do this morning as we read Deuteronomy 31 is we're going to observe four acts of courage that display what it looks like to stand strong in the midst of heavy seasons. Because I don't know, like, if you have paid attention to this in the Bible, but following Jesus isn't all like sunshine and daisies, or maybe you've experienced that too. It does come with risk and cost and seasons where we deal with heaviness. And so how do we equip ourselves to be courageous?

Deuteronomy 31:1 says so Moses continued to speak these words to all Israel. And he said to them, I am 120 years old today. I am no longer able to go out and come in. This. This phrase go out and come in is a way of saying, like, this is what leaders do.

Leaders go out in front of the people and then they come back and they Talk to the people and then they go out in front. And he's saying, I just, I lack the capacity to do this now. And the Lord has said to me, you shall not go over this Jordan. You're not going to go into the land that God has promised. And so Pastor Don is actually going to talk about this soon.

But Moses been given a bit of a death sentence for the way that he sinned with the people. And because of the way that he sinned, God told Moses, you're not going to go into the land that God promised. And so Pastor Don's going to walk you through that and all of its implications. But this passage keeps going and says, the Lord, your God himself will go over before you. So Moses is encouraging the people, God's going to go in front of you and he will destroy these nations before you so that you shall dispossess them.

And Joshua will go over at your head as the Lord has spoken, right? He's going to be in charge. And so wherever you're going, God is in front of you and he's clearing and preparing the ground that you're going to walk on. Whatever he's called you to, you need to know that he's not called you to that place without already being at work in that place that he's called you to. And so in the midst of the next heavy thing that you haven't even started facing yet, you need to know that your Lord is sovereign and he has laid the groundwork for the place that he is calling you to step into.

So verse four.

Oh, we skipped verse four. So just listen to it with me. The Lord will do to them as he did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, into their land when he destroyed them. We didn't look at these stories in really great detail, but God's people have fought battles to get to the point where they are right now. And God has accomplished great victory for them, right?

So they had to work their side, their way up the eastern side of the land. And there have been nations there, and they had to get rid of those nations. And so one of the people or one of the groups that they battled was this guy named Og. King Og was king of a place called Bashan. And King Og of Bashan in the area is a pretty scary dude, right?

Some think that he was in fact a giant. He had a very large bed. We're given the measurements of his bed in the Bible. I don't know what that's about, but. So we had this Information.

And Bashan itself is a place that was known for being incredibly entrenched in demonic spiritual worship. And Og is frightening, but Og is not frightening to the Lord. King Og came out against God's people, and God simply said, hey, don't fear. And then at that point, God made very short work of King Og, who was supposed to be this really scary dude. We have, like a whole three verses to explain how God just, like, wipes the guy out.

And so then in verse six, there's this call. Be strong and courageous because your God has fought for you. Remember what your God has done for you. He makes short work of things that seem really scary, right? Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord, your God, who goes with you.

He will not leave you or forsake you when you go into this land that he has promised, right? So this question is like, why would they fear or be in dread? Because the people are frightening. There are at least two things that the people in that land have in their tool chest. And we read about them earlier, but the first thing is that they have giants, right?

Giants are scary. When people are bigger than you and you have to fight them, that's not a good thing. So the people in the land have giants. And the second thing that they have is they have fortified cities. And these are the two measurements that make God's people go, okay, this is a scary situation for us.

And additionally, these people were just extremely brutal people. The way that they treated the people that they would conquer, the way that they treated those who lived amongst them, they were a very brutal people. And so why don't they have to fear? Because it is God who goes with them, right? That's what God says.

You don't fear. It is I, the Lord, your God, who goes with you. And this is the foundation of the call to courage. God called your name before you could imagine responding to him. God loved you.

God has fought for you completely. In particular, for us who believe in Jesus. God has fought for us in such a clear and profound way through the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus. And so if you're a follower of Jesus in this room, you have at least one, if not many, stories of the ways that God has shown up in ways that completely defied your expectations. And so know this.

God is not calling you to be courageous for no reason. If you look back, he has given reason on top of reason for you to be courageous. Because he has always been faithful in the past to keep his promises. And he will always continue to be faithful, to keep his promises. And so the first part of how we can be courageous, the first of these four acts is that we are called to remember God's faithfulness.

The second courageous act comes in verse seven. Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him, in the sight of all Israel, be strong and courageous. For you shall go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them. And you shall put them in possession of it. It is the Lord who goes before you.

So now Moses said to the people to be strong and courageous. Now Moses turns to Joshua who he's been developing in order to take over this leadership role. And Moses speaks be strong and courageous to Joshua. Joshua is going to be Moses successor, right? Moses is right now the prophetic leader and judge of Israel.

And Joshua is going to take Moses place. Joshua has more of a militaristic function, but he's still going to function as the one who needs to, to listen to God and to lead the people and to give God's words to the people as they go forward. And so Moses is inviting Joshua to come up, up in front of all the people, so that the people can watch Moses pass the baton on to Joshua. And it's really ironic. Moses is simultaneously telling Joshua to be courageous while he himself is giving an active example of what courage looks like.

Because when Moses calls Joshua forward in the sight of God and all the people, he will hand over the mantle of leadership so that Joshua can inherit the land. So while Moses has suffered as the leader of this stiff necked people for the last 40 years, Moses has done all the work to get to this point. And Joshua gets the prize that Moses worked for. And as Moses hands things off to Joshua, he does so in full confidence in front of the Lord and in front of the people. And not only that, but he has to go to Joshua and he has to say, Joshua, don't be the leader that I was.

You have to be better than I was, be a better leader than me. And so for Moses to be able to do this takes a whole lot of humility.

He has to decide in this moment to have nothing but the Lord, right? Moses doesn't get any land and doesn't get any milk and doesn't get any honey. Moses is gonna die for his sin outside of the land. His life is going to end up being the payment for the worst thing that he ever did. And he needs to see this transition through to completion.

Honoring the Lord all the way and equipping Joshua to lead in his place. And so the second action for being courageous is the call to be humble. See, I believe that Moses was able to trust the Lord with this because Moses genuinely believed that because he had the Lord, he had everything he needed. Because he had such a face to face relationship with the Lord. Because he had such an intimacy in his relationship with knowing the Lord and being near to the Lord.

It wasn't easy for Moses to accept the reality that he couldn't go into the land, but he was able to accept it because he knew that because I have the Lord, I have everything I need. And that's the only place that true, lasting, strong courage can come from. It's interesting when Jesus is talking to his disciples and in particular to Peter, he gives this little awareness to Peter. After Peter, you know, denies him and then comes back and returns and is restored to his place. And Jesus is calling, saying, hey, you need to feed my sheep.

And Jesus says this thing to Peter. He says, truly, truly, Peter, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted. You got to kind of have things your own way. But when you are old, that will no longer be the case. You will stretch out your hands and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.

There's a prophetic word given to Peter. This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God. And after Jesus said this, somebody else is going to dress you. Somebody else is going to lead you to a place that you don't want to go. And after saying this, he said to Peter, follow me.

This. I mean, you can't, you can't do what Jesus is calling you to do unless you have decided to have nothing besides Jesus. So humility believes that God alone is the only necessity, right? To be truly courageous, you have to stand at the ready to say, if Jesus, if all, I get Jesus, if that's it, and I lose everything else, I still have everything I need. And if I do have something, then I have it as a generous gift from his hand.

So if I lose status, or if I miss out on worldly success, or I lose money or wealth, or if my family turns away from the Lord, or if I don't get the honor I think I deserve, I still get Jesus.

Now that doesn't mean that there's not a place for lament or grief in the midst of losing things. But it does mean that you stand at the ready to lose every gift as long as you still get Him. What do we sing today? You give and take away. You give and take away.

But my heart will choose to say, I Lord, blessed be your name.

And so verse nine then brings us to the third action of courage.

Then Moses wrote this law and gave it to this priest. So this, like, really weird little subsection, like, it's sandwiched, like, right in the middle of this chapter, which is primarily about courage. But Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests. And Moses commanded them at the end of every seven years and at the time in the year of release at the feast of Booths. So this is Moses giving a command about something called the year of jubilee.

In the year of jubilee, every slave was meant to be released in Israel. Every debt was meant to be forgiven. And if you had given away property in order to pay debts, or if your family had given away property in order to pay debts, then sometimes in the 40 or in the 50th year, you would. All of that land that your family had relinquished would be returned to your family, right? So the year of jubilee is a really big deal.

It's a return of all of the things that are supposed to be. And Moses commands, hey, in connection to this seventh year of release, when the prisoners go free and the debts are repaid, you are also supposed to read this law. So it is a verse 11. When all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God, at the place he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Assemble the people that they may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God.

And be careful to do all the words of this law. When. When Moses says this law, you might be inclined to think that he's talking about the whole Torah or the first five books of the Bible, but he's actually just talking about Deuteronomy 5 through Deuteronomy 28. Because Deuteronomy 5 through Deuteromy 28, like this re articulation and application of all of the commands of the Torah. And it's like a detailing of the covenant that God has with Israel and all the requirements that come along with it before they get into the land.

And so Moses says, hey, every year you're going to read this re articulation of the covenant. And it also talks about the blessings and curses that come along with that. If you do these words, these are the blessings that you will receive. And if you fail to do them, these are the curses that will come upon you. So Moses here is telling them that all the people would be required by a national edict to be reminded and to understand the covenant that they have with God, that at least once every seven years, the entire nation was going to gather in order to listen to just a massive chunk of scripture be read so that they could remember God's law.

And they were supposed to do this every seven years. And it's right in the middle. This command to do this is right in the middle of this chapter of God calling his people to be strong and courageous. And so the third action for how we can be strong and courageous is that we need to cling to God's word. This is why God gives the command.

Here you're going into the land. You have to have rhythm of being in My word, being connected to my word, knowing what my Word says, knowing my desires, knowing my heart. And so it has always been and always will be that if God did not reveal Himself to us through His Word, we would not know who he is or how to respond to Him. But the almighty commander of angel armies, who we read that he spoke and worlds came into being, that he holds the stars in his hands. He saw fit, for some reason, to condescend himself to the limitations of human language so that he could use words to help us understand who he is, so that we can interact with him and we can know Him.

And so how in the world could we just choose to neglect something as precious as His Word?

And so, in part, the story of Israel should function as a warning to us, because it's interesting this command is given, but look a little bit more at it. You shall read this law. You're going to do this pattern. You're going to do it as long as you live in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You know how many times this was practiced in Israel before they were exiled into Babylon?

This command, this particular command, how many times it was practiced in Israel?

Zero. Not one time did God's people follow through on this command. The reason we know that is after God's people return from their exile, they return to a Jerusalem that is destroyed and the walls have fallen down. Nehemiah leads the people to rebuild the walls, and then they're going to recommit themselves to the Lord as a people. And the time that they're recommitting themselves comes at the feast of Booths.

And so it says this in Nehemiah 8:17. This is 800 years later, all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made Booths and lived in the Booths. For from the day of Yeshua, Joshua, the son of nun. To that day, the people of Israel had not done so. So they had not celebrated the Feast of Booths.

But then you look, it goes on in verse 18, and it says, and day by day, from the first day to the last of that feast, he read from the book of the law of God, right? They had not practiced this practice, which means that even under, like, the reign of the most righteous kings, they did not reinstate this. King David did not reinstate this practice. And not surprisingly, over time, things in Israel fell apart because they didn't cling to God's word. And so verse 14 then draws our attention to the last action of how we can be courageous.

The Lord said to Moses, behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Sorry. Let's go back to verse 14. It's not there. That's okay.

Verse 14. Listen. The Lord said to Moses, behold, the days are approaching when you must die.

So call Joshua, bring him up here. Present yourselves in the tent of meeting that I may commission him. And Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves in the tent of meeting. And verse 15 says that the Lord appeared in the tent in a pillar of cloud, and the pillar of cloud stood over the entrance of the tent. They are inside the tent of meeting.

The pillar of cloud is over the top of them right now. Moses and Joshua are about to receive some of the hardest news that leaders of God's people ever have to receive. So verse 16, as Moses and Joshua are before the Lord, behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. And then, Moses, then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering. And they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them.

There are four key verbs. Rice, hor. Which means that they're going to commit adultery against me and pick other gods over me. They will forsake me, and they will break the covenant. This progression is a heartbreaking progression, especially for those who are called to lead.

And then before God says anything more, Moses and Joshua know that for God's people, this kind of behavior will. Will only result in death and heartache and destruction for everyone.

So verse 17, then my anger will be kindled against them in that day. And I will forsake them and hide my face from them, and they will be devoured. And many evils and troubles will come upon them, so that they will say, in that day, have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us. And verse 18 says, and I will surely hide my face in that day because of all the evil that they have done because they have turned to other gods. I want you to notice two things with me before we figure out this fourth point.

The first thing I want you to notice is that this is not a warning. There's no ifs in what God tells to Joshua and Moses here. God is saying that this will happen. He knows it with such clarity that as soon as they get into the land, they're just gonna forsake me. And so with a warning, you know, there's something you can maybe do about it, right?

There's something you could do to prevent it. But Joshua figures out here, when you go to lead the people, you're not going to be able to prevent them from doing this. And see. So the only consolation for Joshua here is that he himself has a way to prepare for this just being the reality that's going to exist for the people. He has a way to prepare himself.

He has a way to prepare his family and those closest to him. But God, he looks down into the corridors of the future and knows that no matter how many warnings that these people receive, they will choose this evil. And so the second thing that I want you to notice is that God isn't the one doing the evil. When God says, I'm going to hide my face and I'm going to pull back from you, he's saying, this is the choice that they are going to make. They are going to choose to forsake my love.

They're going to choose even though I have loved them perfectly. They're going to choose to want to have nothing to do with me. And true to his word, God is going to give them the thing that they're seeking. And so what will this future generation want? Well, they're going to want distance from the restriction of God's laws.

They don't like that restriction. They want freedom to finally do all the things that they've always wanted to do. They want pleasure. They look at those pagan nations, man, those people get to have a lot of fun, you know that they look so happy in the fun that they're having. I want their lifestyle too.

I can be happy like that, right? And so there's going to be this pull to the people to just forsake the Lord. And so after receiving this bad news, the Lord then says to Joshua, the Lord commissioned Joshua, the son of Nun, and said, be strong and courageous, for you shall bring the people of Israel into the land that I swore to give them. And I will be with you. Yahweh looks at Joshua and says, are you ready for this?

The heartbreak that you're gonna experience, the challenge of leading a people who will not have me rule over them. Joshua, you gotta dig deep. You have to brace yourself. You have to hold tight to my promises. And you need to be prepared to act boldly, because while they're all going one way, you are called to be faithful to me and go against the grain.

And you're gonna need to pay attention to how this culture and these people will subtly and then all at once, abandon me. And you need to keep following me when they abandon me. So the fourth piece of how to be courageous, fourth action is to resist the current. Swim upstream.

This phrase, be strong and courageous, it actually becomes the catchphrase for Joshua. It's the way that the Lord kind of leads Joshua and assures Joshua. Joshua is going to need persistently to be reminded that the thing that Yahweh keeps saying to him over and over and over again is you need to do dig deep and brace yourself, Joshua. So imagine. Imagine being told something like this so that you can kind of put yourself in Joshua's shoes.

Imagine being told, hey, your closest friends are going to drift and then suddenly abandon the faith. And there will be a persistent pull to participate in. The things that God has made clear forever will be destructive. And you will watch people who you thought were close to you begin to mock the God that you worship and laugh about the mockery that they make. And the more faithful you are to me, Joshua, the more odd you will seem to be to your people.

And it is this awareness that Joshua has that causes him when, after he leads the people through the land and leads the conquest of Israel. I believe it's Joshua's awareness of what the Lord tells him here that causes him to say this. At the end of the book of Joshua, Joshua 24:15, knowing what the Lord had said will happen, Joshua tells the people of Israel, if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods that your fathers served in the region beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites and in whose land you dwell. Right? You gotta pick.

But you need to know, me and my house, we're gonna serve Yahweh and we're gonna follow Yahweh. Right? And so this is Joshua's sort of resigned word of rebuke, right? Because as he talks to the people, he's saying, I kind of know that you're not in for following the Lord. You need to figure out who you're in for following.

He's basically like, you know, I know this, and you're going to do what you're going to do. But my family will not go the direction that this culture goes. We will know who to follow and who to worship no matter what the current does.

Okay, so those are the four actions, the four actions for becoming courageous that are displayed to us in Deuteronomy 31. And so, so what? We just have one today. And it is simply this strength and courage is nothing if the Lord does not go with you. You might be inclined to receive this call to be strong and courageous as a kind of like, you buck up kind of sermon.

And in some ways it is. But the great temptation is to think that you somehow have something in yourself to be courageous for what's in front of you, and you just don't. Right? Like, if you want to be courageous for things that God says actually matter, you need him with you. You do not have in you the capacity for this kind of courage.

And so I just want to ask you a question to jog your memory. When has the Lord been with you? Right. If we're getting. If we need to remember God's faithfulness, you need to cling tight to, when has the Lord been with you?

You know, Jesus, when he commissions the disciples, he gives them something called the Great Commission. He tells them to, hey, you're going to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of. Of the Holy Spirit. And you remember things that Jesus said before he told them to do this, that, hey, when you go and you make disciples and you tell people who I am and proclaim the truth about me, those people will slander you and they will persecute you and they will deride you and they may even kill you. And you need to go to those people and tell them who I am and tell them that I love them.

And what does Jesus say to them?

Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Says the same thing to his disciples when he commissions them that the Lord said to Joshua when he commissioned them.

So I just want to tell you that's an encouragement for you if you're a believer. If you're here this morning and you're not a believer in Jesus, you have not trusted Jesus as your Lord and, and Savior. I need to just be explicitly clear with you about one thing. He's not with you.

And while you may have the capacity in yourself to be strong and courageous. You have no way of knowing whether the things that you are strong and courageous for will have lasting value. Right? The things that you're seeking to get after, you just have no way of knowing that they're going to last. But the earliest Christian martyrs, those who went and they died for their faith by simply loving poor people and preaching the gospel, and by not retaliating against their oppressors, the earliest Christian martyrs had courage because the one who went with them persistently reminded them that everything that they did had everlasting value.

So if you don't know Jesus, you have no way of knowing if the things that you do have lasting value. But Jesus gives a pathway into knowing that the things he calls you to will have everlasting value. And real strength and courage starts with giving your life to Jesus as your Lord and Savior. So whether you're listening online, you're here in person, and you sense the need to do that today, I just encourage you. If you haven't done it, would you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and surrender your life to him as your Lord?