Deuteronomy 30:11-14 | The Voice Of The Shepherd | Don Romano

I want you to. I want to invite you to turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy, chapter 30.

Yes, we're still in Deuteronomy, but that's okay. There's some awesome stuff here.

I have four children. All of them are married and have children of their own, like me. Some of you also have children and some of you grandchildren. Unlike most of you, I had the privilege, the honor of guiding each of my children and their respective spouses throughout through some premarital counseling. And then I was able to challenge them at their wedding service, their marriage service, because I performed their wedding ceremonies.

So during those premarital counseling sessions and the wedding ceremonies, I had the opportunity to speak into the lives of my children and their future spouses regarding how their lives together might unfold.

I was able to help them understand some of the things that each of them was bringing into the relationship. And I was able to help prepare them to face some of the challenges that their individuality would likely present as time went by. Most important, I was able to build into their lives tools and skills that they could use later on to navigate those challenges.

Three weeks ago, I stood in this very spot and explored some of Moses last words to the children of Israel. I was speaking about the weight of a person's last words. And I was able to challenge you with a statement and a question. Your life is already making a statement. Is it saying what you want to say?

After all, each of us is speaking into the lives of people we love. And today we'll be exploring the voice of a shepherd, a shepherd's voice, the shepherd's voice. Actually, the voice of the shepherd, the great shepherd, the good shepherd, the great shepherd of the sheep. And just as I took an opportunity to build into the lives of my children before they got married, I built into them an awareness of who they were, what the dynamics of their individuality might bring. I gave them tools to help them navigate the rapids.

In a very similar way, God used Moses to present similar things to the children of Israel to give them and build into their lives some of those same things. Information tools used to navigate.

The question, of course, is, since God is doing the same thing for us today, are we aware of him speaking into our lives?

Do we recognize the voice of The Shepherd?

Psalm 95 and Hebrews 4 both say this. Hebrews 4 quotes Psalm 95. Today, if you hear his voice, do not humble, harden your heart.

So my prayer has been that my children will remember their preparation and be able to access the things that I built into their Life as they face the challenges that come. After all, the information is there, the skills, the abilities are built into them already.

Those things are not beyond their reach. They can get their hands on them. They are built into their lives.

Oh, yeah, they will still need help from time to time. They'll need others who have gone before and navigated similar passages and if they're going to be successful. But all the things they need are within reach for them.

See, when it comes to walking by faith, God gave Israel what they needed.

He spoke it to them. He wrote it down for them. He welded it into their collective experience. He built it into their national identity and burned it into their minds through traditions.

No, I'm not going to break into a song about traditions.

Fiddler on the Roof if you don't know, this morning we'll look at what God has done for Israel and what he promised for their future future. We will also look at what he has provided for us and explore a little bit of how we can access it.

Before we do that, we need to pray. So pray with me if you will.

Heavenly Father, you have gone out of your way. If you were a human being, we'd say you've bent over backwards to provide for us all of the things we need in order to honor you as God. You've given us the information, You've given us your expectation. You've provided for us the means, the will, and the power.

The question is whether we will grab on to youo provision, whether we will hear your guiding us through youh Word and through sensitivity to youo, Holy Spirit. And so, Holy Spirit, I pray this for us today. Reveal to us in our hearts, in our minds, through the Word, what it is that the Father has so graciously provided by giving you to be the one who walks alongside us.

Make us sensitive that we might sense your guiding. We ask it in Jesus name, and we ask it that the kingdom of might be established in our lives, in the lives of the people we contact every day here on Earth.

That the Father's will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

So Deuteronomy, chapter 30, beginning at verse 11 and going through 14, if you have it there.

This commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you. Moses says, nor is it out of reach.

It is not in heaven that you should say, who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it. Nor is it beyond the sea that you should say, who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it. But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart that you may observe it.

There it is. See, God gave Israel everything they needed to know in order.

In order to do this. And this is the literal meaning of what the words say there. In order to do what he commanded. Let me just read it that way. It's not beyond the sea that you should say, who will cross a sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it so we may do it.

That's exactly what that's about. Do you recall three weeks ago I stood in this same spot. You recall that message? It was the one about a shepherd's heart. Remember that one?

Let remind you. Let me remind you. The main thing that we built the argument on was this statement that if you honor the Lord as God, he will honor his promise for your good.

If you honor the Lord as God, he will honor his promise for your good.

This passage basically says, I've honored my promise. I've given you what you need. It's near you. It's understandable. You can comprehend it.

You know what the words mean. You know how to do these things. I have provided.

Well, let me try this one from three weeks ago. Your life is making a statement. Is it saying what you want it to say? So those two things kind of go together. God provided for us everything we need to.

To have in order to be able to honor him as God so that he can bless us is basically what it comes down to in this case. The first statement is the important one. If you honor God, Sometimes it's hard, but that's what today's passage is about. In Deuteronomy, God is telling Israel that not only will he honor his promise for their good, he is telling them he has already given them everything they need to honor him in the way that he desires to be honored. That kind of makes sense, right?

I mean, go back to my children, but way before they got married, they knew the rules of the house. Let me go back to me, when I was young, If I was not at home, I mean, I would leave the house early in the morning in the summertime and come back when the street lights came on. And in between time, somehow mom knew everything I did.

And I knew that she would know. And so while I was out, I knew what things it was okay to do and what it was not okay to do.

And if I crossed into the not okay to do it category, I would Come home in the evening. And the closer I got to home, the more fearful I'd become.

So how did I know all day long what things were okay and what things were not okay? How did I know what it meant to behave the way my parents wanted me to behave? How did I know what things I could do in order to illustrate that they were really good parents and were raising me right? I knew those things because I knew my parents.

That's it. That's what it boils down to. Israel knew these things because they knew who God was.

So in our passage today, God is telling Israel not only that he will honor his promise for their good, but he is telling them that he has already given them, built into them, everything they need to honor him the way he desired to be honored.

Look at verses 1 through 10 in Deuteronomy 30. For a moment, So it shall be. When all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, you'll remember what Pastor Alex has been telling us recently. When all these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind in all nations where the Lord your God has been banished you, and you return to the Lord your God, and obey him with all your heart and soul, according to all that I command you today, you and your sons. Then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you, if your outcasts are at the ends of the earth, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will bring you back.

The Lord your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it, and he will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. Moreover, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, so that you may live. The Lord your God will inflict all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, who persecuted you, and you shall again obey the Lord and observe all his commandments which I command you today. Then the Lord your God will prosper you abundantly in all the works of your hand, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your cattle, and in the produce of your ground. For the Lord will again rejoice over you for good, just as he rejoiced over your fathers.

If you obey the Lord Your God to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law. If you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, for the commandment which I commanded you is not to do difficult, nor is it out of reach. It's not in heaven that you should say, who's going to go get it for us? It's not across the sea that you should ask, who's going to get it for us? It's in you, it's in your heart, it's in your mind, it's written on scrolls.

You can refer to it, it won't change.

So with that background, first thing to know, when God requires something of us, like he required Israel to obey him, he satisfies that requirement for us.

Look at verse six. Verse six right there says this, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul so that you may live. What God is saying there is, I will change your rebellious heart because he just went through that whole thing, right? There's a day coming, you're going to turn away from me and bad things are going to happen. But when you turn back to me, good things are going to happen.

I will give you a heart that turns to me. So when God requires something of us, that we turn toward him, that we hear his voice, that we recognize his word, his commandments, that we actually desire to honor the Lord as God, he builds in us the desire to do that. He does not turn us into mindless automatons like Tesla.

He does not make us to be like little radio controlled toys that run around doing whatever we are programmed to do. When he pushes the buttons or moves the levers, we're not like that.

Instead, he does in us what it takes to move our hearts toward Him. He doesn't force us. He opens the path.

He does not force us into a different shape. Like what happens to our face when we go to a plastic surgeon. Isn't that what they do? They change the way we look. Instead, God corrects us in the performance.

He corrects the form and the performance of our heart. Kind of like a heart surgeon. See, he wants to make our hearts be all that they were designed to be before they were diseased by sin. When we ask him to do it, he fixes our heart. He doesn't force us to follow it.

He fixes it so that we want to follow Him. Actually, it is sin that forces us to go away. From him and to follow the defects of our diseased heart.

That's what it says in verse six. I will give you a heart.

God will circumcise your heart to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, so that you may live. I don't want to have to chase you to the ends of the earth. I want you to come back to me. See, we have a fatal disease of the heart. The symptoms are that we do not actually honor God as God in our life.

The prognosis is death. The disease of our heart will kill us forever.

The good news is that our heart can be repaired. The correct theological term is redeemed. Our heart can be redeemed and it's actually more like a transplant than a corrective surgery.

The result the same. However, we are placed into a condition in which we can live. The prognosis was death forever. God has fixed us so that we can live if we choose. We can at least choose to continue our self destructive ways.

Or we, we can choose the way that leads to heart transplant in life.

Second thing to remember here from this passage. When we honor the Lord as God, he becomes our strength. Look at verse 14 in Deuteronomy 30.

The word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart that you may observe. Didn't say will observe it. I haven't done this to you in order to remove your will.

I have done this in order to remove the obstructions to a good and right will. We do not have the ability or the strength to honor God in the way that he wants to be honored. We pursue our own thing. Our diseased heart guides us. What we do have now is a heart that is alive to God.

If we have invited him to perform the surgery and the transplant.

For Israel, it was a written word.

It was the word that they could read, understand, refer back to, and live by.

Let's take a quick look at the Word and the hearts in which it was written. Because in verse 14, God said, the word is near you. The word is near you. The concepts, the teaching, the commandment, it's near you. Let's go backwards to Deuteronomy chapter 6, just for a moment.

In Deuteronomy chapter 6, beginning at verse 6 and through verse 7, the words which I am commanding you today will be on your heart. You will teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up, imagine yourself in those Positions, walking, rising, lying down, and sitting. There's really pretty much only one other thing you can do, and that is kneel.

Back to Deuteronomy 36. Moreover, the word will be in you. This is not a strange idea to Israel. Israel had this concept down already. Well, maybe not as much as she would come to have it down.

In fact, later on, her prophets spoke about this thing in plenty of places.

For example, in the book of Ezekiel, there are two places that God reveals something about this heart transplant that Israel would need. In Ezekiel, chapter 11, verses 19 and 20, it says this. I will give them one heart. Now he's talking about the people. I'll give the people one heart.

They'll be united, and I will put a new spirit in them.

And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my commandments.

Then they will be my people, and I shall be their God. That's an interesting thing, because God right there for Israel connects this thought way back with what happened in Deuteronomy before this, that there's a matter of the heart that has to be repaired. Israel is scattered all over the place. I'll give them one heart, and for each of them, as a nation, I'll give them one heart. For each of them.

I'll take that stony heart that rejects me and goes wrong and replace it with a soft, malleable, flesh, fleshy heart that I can form and will cause them to love the things that bring them life. See, the Ezekiel passage is interesting. It is the literal fulfillment of what Moses was talking about. I'll write on their hearts. How will he write?

Well, it's easy. I'll take that old stony one out. I'll put a fleshly one in there that has that ability to respond positively to God's word. It says right there in both verses, Deuteronomy and Ezekiel 11. So they can do it.

There's more than a repaired heart here. There's a transplant stone to flesh. There is also a reviving of the spirit, because he says, I will put a spirit in them, a new spirit, one that is accompanied by by a commitment to follow God and love Him.

God honors our choice, but once the choice to honor him is made, he supplies the power to walk straight and live. That power is in that new spirit that he would pour out on Israel.

Third point is this. Those things apply to us as well as Israel. It's not like, oh, I'm not descended from Abraham, and so I have no hope. I can only ever go against God. I have a diseased heart.

Romans 10:6, 13.

Romans 10:6, 13. The righteousness based on faith speaks as follows. Do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down, or who will descend into the abyss that is to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say? The word is near you.

In your mouth, in your heart. That is the word of faith which we are preaching. That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him. Paul is saying there in Romans that just as Israel was being called to honor the Lord as God, so God has extended the offer of a new heart to everyone.

It's available to us. In fact, the word sounded really kind of familiar, right? Who will go up to heaven to bring Christ down for us? We don't have to do that. He came down for us, right?

Absolutely. Who will go down and get him, bring him up for us? He did it.

He did it. He repaired. And then later.

I'll get to later in a minute.

So in Romans 10 there, Paul was writing about Christians, people who followed Jesus. The first thing I want to point out is the word Israel means one who strives well with God. And the word Christian means little Christ.

H. You see, both Israel and the church, Christians are the people who bear God's name.

It's an awesome responsibility. It's too big, it's too heavy. It's too great a burden. I can't bear it. Well, fortunately, he gives me his spirit to do it.

See, why is that significant? That we bear the name of God. I told you about Ezekiel 11, where God says that bit about removing Israel's heart of stone and putting a heart of flesh back in its place. The same phrase appears again in Ezekiel chapter 36.

Ezekiel is a very interesting book. Again, that in Ezekiel 36 is a promise regarding Israel's future. God will give them a heart that desires to follow him. The difference is that in Ezekiel 36, if you were to read that passage, God tells Israel the reason for their captivity and why he will one day restore Israel. Let me read it to you.

Ezekiel 36:22 through 26.

Sometimes it's hard to find all these guys. Got a little chart here.

Ezekiel36:22 26 says this, say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord. It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went. I will vindicate the holiness of my name, my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when I prove myself holy among you in their sight. For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, bring you into your own land.

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. So let me draw a line for you from Deuteronomy, where God says, the Word is in your heart, through Ezekiel, where he says, I'll write it in your heart, and I'll give you a new spirit.

Through later in Ezekiel, where he says, a new spirit, a new heart, all connected together. The Word in Deuteronomy, the promise of a new heart with God's law written on it. In Ezekiel 11, the promise of that new heart with a new spirit. In Ezekiel 36, there's a straight line, and it points from Mount Pisgah, where Moses was about to die, through Babylon, where Ezekiel was in captivity, right through Jeremiah in Jerusalem. We'll get there in a second.

Right to the cross, through the cross, to your heart, a straight line, God's word, a new heart, a promised spirit, Christ's supply, all aimed at your heart.

One significant difference between Ezekiel 11's passage and the 36 passage is the new Spirit, my Spirit.

In our passage today in Deuteronomy, Moses wrote that it was the Word. It was already in them. It was in their mouth, it was in their heart, it was in their mind or understanding so that they could honor the Lord as God, keep his commandments. Even so, the same context Moses told them they would fall away and stop honoring God as God and do exactly the opposite of what they had promised. Back in chapter five, when they said, tell us what to do and we will do it.

Here in Ezekiel 36, God speaks of a time when he will introduce a completely new dynamic into that equation, God will put his spirit within them.

The you there is plural. He said about the nation earlier, I will give you a new heart. I will give you one heart, is what he said. But now he's saying, I will give you plural, each individually, a new spirit.

Ezekiel lived at an interesting time and place, right? Moses prophesied that you will turn your back on the Lord and he will scatter you. Well, Nebuchadnezzar, the emperor in Babylon, came in, attacked, took captives back to his capital city, Babylon. Ezekiel was among them. He was captive in Babylon.

But later, later he kept attacking Israel. And actually this time we'll call it Judah, where the city of Jerusalem was still a stronghold. He sacked Jerusalem, where Jeremiah was the prophet. Ezekiel was the prophet, talking to Israel in Babylon. Jeremiah at the same time was talking to Judah in Jerusalem.

So we need to compare Ezekiel and Jeremiah. You'll find out that God is saying much the same thing to the people in Jerusalem as he was saying to the captives in Babylon.

For example, in Jeremiah 31, starting at verse 31, this is just amazing. Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel. Now remember, he was making a covenant with Israel right there in the wilderness from the foot of Mount Sinai. And Moses in the book of Deuteronomy is recounting that whole covenant for the sake of the next generation. And Jeremiah comes along years and years later.

Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah. Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant, which they broke, although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and on their heart I will write it.

And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. They will not teach again. Every man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. I will remember no more.

Jeremiah, Ezekiel. And how can we forget Daniel? Because Daniel was in Babylon too. But he was not sitting among his people along the side of the river, the canal. He was in the palace talking to the king.

And somewhere along the way, Daniel was able to receive a prophecy saying this. A certain amount of time is determined. And in that prophecy, Several things would be accomplished. But one of those is an end to sin, the thing that pollutes our heart, the disease from which we all suffer. So there you have it.

Is this woven through Israel's history or what? I mean, these concepts are huge. So for months, we have been talking about Moses and the law. The law was a covenant that God made with Israel. In a moment, we'll celebrate communion together.

When we do, we'll be celebrating that new covenant that Jeremiah spoke of. Because Jesus, when he was at the table, took one of the cups and said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. This is the new covenant. It's not going to be like the old covenant. They're all going to know me from the least to the greatest.

They're going to have a heart to follow me.

That new covenant even includes God putting his Spirit in the hearts of people who will honor him as God.

Ezekiel 36. In communion, we recognize that Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant. He's. He's the guy who worked on all the details, but he did it for us and for Israel. It is that new covenant, the one that was promised to Israel and the one we were invited into later.

See, we benefit from that covenant now, including the new heart, including the desire to honor God as God, including the Spirit to guide us through that. We benefit from it now. Unless there be any doubt that God will honor his promise to Israel, I want you to go home and read the rest of Jeremiah 31, where God promises that Israel will always be a nation in his sight as long as creation exists. So if we're here to think about it, it's still a real thing. Israel is still a nation.

Well, so what? That's a lot of stuff, right? I mean, that's just.

Well, here it is. Here's the. So what? So if all this stuff is true, live by the Spirit. Live by the Spirit.

See, the Spirit of God is the voice of the shepherd, and that Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit.

Paul says it this way. His Spirit bears testimony with our Spirit that we are the children of God.

So where is it? Walk by the Spirit, live by the Spirit. Where is it? How do we know how to do that? Where do we get that?

Do we send someone to heaven and say, bring it down so we can do it? Do we send someone over the sea and say, bring the Holy Spirit so we can be empowered to honor God as God?

No. God sent the Spirit in Acts, chapter two.

There's another one you can read for yourself. So I'm Going to let the words of Paul in Roman 8 Be our so what for today.

Romans 8, verses 1 through 14.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, weak as it was, through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. But those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace. Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God.

For it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.

And those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

However, you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the Spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

So then, brethren, we are not. We are under obligation not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live for all who are led by the Spirit of God.

These are the children of God.

So.

Obey God's word. How? Let your heart be transformed from stone to flesh. How? God will do it.

Yield to Him. Invite Him.

Make up your mind. I want to walk by the Spirit. I want to abandon the sin disease in my heart. I need a new heart.