Deuteronomy 27-28 | Understanding Your Commitment | Alex Culpepper

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Alex Culpepper. I'm the lead pastor here at Renovation Church. It is my joy every Sunday, or at least most Sundays, to be able to open up God's Word with you. At our church, we just really value walking through Scripture. We believe we are welcomed into a relationship with God, and one of the primary ways that God reveals himself to us is by His Word.

We cannot know him if he doesn't reveal Himself to us. And so we use Scripture to walk us through that. And we are committed to knowing and understanding what God says in the Bible. And so we're in Deuteronomy, chapter 27 today. If you want to open your Bible or you have an app on your phone, you want to follow along with us.

And then while you're opening your Bibles, I want to talk to those of you who are married.

How many of you married people in the room can confidently say that you remember what was preached on your wedding day? If you can confidently say that you remember that. I've got.

I've got eight. Maybe there's eight in here. Okay, that's good. All right. So I don't.

I just want to let you know so that. Don't feel bad. I don't remember what was preached on my. My wedding day. One of the things that I have talked with other pastors about is that when we give sermons at weddings, the sermon is not for the bride and groom.

Like, this day is so full of everything that they've been planning for all this time. And, like, we talk to them, but the words we say are really for the other people in the room as they're listening to understand what's going on here in this, you know, in this making of vows and that kind of stuff. So that. That's what that is about. We realize that the bride and groom probably won't remember what we say.

So I'm going to ask a different. For those of you who are married, how many of you basically remember your wedding vows? Raise your hand if you basically remember the vows that you made on your wedding day. Yeah. Yeah.

So there's more. There's more people in the room who remember that. Right. Because, I mean, part of the reason is you've been to enough weddings. Often the vows are very similar to each other.

Right. For better or worse, richer, poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. Right. That kind of idea. So those of you who have had long marriages have been through enough stuff to know that while you said those vows on your wedding day, and you probably meant it with all of your heart.

You couldn't really comprehend the gravity of what you were saying in that moment as you made those vows. You couldn't comprehend, like, the patience that it would require of you, the humility and vulnerability that it calls for, to be joined with another person for the rest of your life, the endurance that it would require of you, the cost that it would require of you. And so the relationship of marriage is like, is a blessing. It is meant to be a true blessing from God. But living out the commitment of marriage comes at a cost.

And there's a very similar reality to relationship with God. See, God is the greatest blessing to us, and knowing him is truly a special thing. But when we're called to faith in Christ, to allegiance to Christ, when we come to know that we need Christ as both our Lord and our Savior, we come knowing that he gets everything right. Because we were purchased at a price now. And we can't fully grasp at the outset of that relationship all that that means when we say, yes, I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior, and yet still he, you know, he calls for us to make our whole selves living sacrifices to him.

And so last week, Pastor Don, he launched us into a new series in the Book of Deuteronomy. And it's a short series. We're only going to spend about four weeks here. And we're calling this series a Shepherd's Voice. See, the book of Deuteronomy is unique in large part.

The Book of Deuteronomy is a re articulation of of all of the laws that had been written previously in the first four books of the Bible. And in the last 40 years, the people of Israel have been going across the desert, and now they're getting ready to enter into God's promised land after a season of disobedience. And so Moses is standing kind of at the edge of the promised land. And really what the Book of Deuteronomy is, it's like a big sermon that Moses preaches to the people of Israel before they get ready to go into the land. He re articulates the law to them, and he does it with a keen awareness not just of the things that they need to know and do in the land, but he does it with an awareness of who this people is and the exact things that they need to hear in order to follow God's will when they get into the place that God has prepared for them.

And so Moses speaks with the voice of a shepherd. He knows where these people are, he understands them, and he's empowered and inspired by the Holy Spirit to speak to them in ways that are specifically aimed at them, at their unique situation, their particular thinking, their worldview that they need to hear to help them to be able to live out a relationship with the living God. And so you ever hear a sermon before and think, yeah, that was exactly what I needed to hear. Have you had that experience before? That's what the book of Deuteronomy is for the people of Israel.

That it's like, that is exactly what they needed to hear. And so we're not going to revisit the law like Moses revisits the law. Chapters 12 through 26 really are the re articulation of the law. We're not going to do much of that. We're really.

What we're doing is we're pulling out big themes of shepherding that Moses does in the book of Deuteronomy. So Pastor Don last week helped us kind of consider this umbrella theme of discipleship, right, that. That he's saying, follow me as I follow God, and I need you to be able to follow Joshua as Joshua follows God and he gets into the land. And the people of Israel were meant to be a people who would pour out their lives for the sake of helping those among them be able to follow God. And Pastor Don encourages that this is God's heart for his family, that this is what we do.

This week, what we're doing is we're pulling out this shepherding theme of commitment because Moses is aware of the implications of what it means to live in a relationship with the living God. What it means that God would invite human beings into relationship with himself. And he realizes that. That by and large, people miss the significance of what it means that God wants a relationship with us. And so Deuteronomy 27, verse 1 says, Now Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, on the day you cross over the Jordan to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall set up large stones and plaster them with plaster.

So a bit of context. What Moses has just finished doing, we're in chapter 27, in chapter 26, he just finished again re articulating the whole law to them. And so now verse 27, now that he's finished re saying all that God's law has to say, he's now giving them some next steps, some instructions that they need to do. And when he. When he said all of these things in the law really Kind of what he was doing is he was preaching a sermon at a divine wedding ceremony, like a ceremony between God and his people.

He was preaching the sermon to the people to help them understand, like you are being joined to God. He read to the people their vows in the marriage covenant, right? In the relationship that they have with God, this is the part that they have to play as they live in the land. And now Moses is giving them instruction for a specific act that they're going to perform once they get into the land. They're gonna make a kind of display, a monument.

Think of it like their own Statue of Liberty, right? This is the thing that when everybody comes into this nation, they're going to see the. This monument at the entrance of the land. Verse 3, you shall write on them, that is on these stones made with plaster or on this monument all the words of this law. So this monument is for the writing of every command that God has given Moses and that Moses has just spoken to the people of Israel, right?

And later in verse 8, it says not only that they should write it, but they need to write it very plainly, right? That they need to make it clear and understandable. What they're doing is at the entrance of the land that God has promised this people, right? And the land is like God's wedding gift to the people of Israel. He loves them very much, and he is giving them this special gift.

And so at the entrance of the land, what they're gonna do is they're gonna write this clear and understandable record of all. All that God calls his holy people to when he has a relationship with them. What they're doing is they're writing down their marriage vows and kind of, they're posting them for everybody to see when they get into the land. So God, his desire is for them to clearly understand his commands, but he also wants anybody else who ever is going to come into this land to also clearly understand his commands and the kind of relationship that he has with his people. And so verse four says, you shall set up these stones concerning which I command you today on Mount Ebal.

You shall build an altar to the Lord your God of uncut stones. And then you're gonna offer burnt offerings and peace offerings and shall eat there, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God. So the fact that this is on this altar and the monument is on Mount Ebal is important. But we're gonna come back to that in a. I want you to see the attitude that Moses is giving this command in. So we did the book of Leviticus, like a year and a half ago or two years ago.

And we talked about the different kinds of offerings that the people of Israel would make. And the peace offering is one kind of offering. The peace offering, what it emphasized really was first atonement for sin, right? So that you could be made clean to be able to come near to God. But then also the peace offering.

The point of the peace offering is after you made the offering and whatever animal you offered was burned, you would then take the meat from that animal and you would share it with your neighbors, right? You would have fellowship around, a meal together. The bounty of this sacrifice that you've made with God. The idea is that you are eating together with God like you're a family. God's coming to your table.

What this means is that Moses is basically instructing these people to throw a big party, right? You're going to have a celebration together. And Moses is like the party planning committee, right? He's giving them instructions for what they need to do. And so he has details to give them about what this party's going to look like.

But first, this happens in verse nine. Then Moses and the Levitical priest said to all Israel, keep silence and hear. O Israel, this day you have become the people of the Lord, your God. This is a very holy moment, right? If you're just sitting down and reading the Bible, you could, like, read this verse and just skip over it and not realize the significance.

But this. This is hugely important. Moses is saying, like, now that he's finished reading their wedding vows, right? He. He's saying, you know, he is your God and you are his people, right?

Like, up to this point, it was, he shall be your God and you shall be his people. Today it is, he is your God and you are his people. This relationship between Israel and God is now official in every possible way. You are his, he is yours. It's essentially Moses is saying, God has kept his betrothal promise to you.

He's done what he's promised you he was due, and now you belong to him. Like, Moses is speaking out affirmation of their identity as God's people. This is a celebration of who they are. And so Moses has a plan for a party with feasting and the posting of vows in the land that God has given them. And it's all to make sure that they fully understand what it means to have a relationship with God.

So verse 11, that day, Moses charged the people, saying, here are his instructions for this celebration. When you have crossed over the Jordan These shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people. Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. And these shall stand on Mount Ebal for the curse. Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

So part of this celebration is that they will remember that the relationship that they have with God comes with the implication of blessings and curses. The curses come in their neglect and rebellion against God's commands. And the blessings are in their own obedience to God's commands. See? Half.

And so what's happening is he's saying six of the tribes of Israel are going to stand on one mountain, and six of the tribes of Israel are going to stand on the other mountain. He's dividing the people in half and splitting them up. And this is not saying that those tribes over there are better than those tribes over there. The point is to say that all of the tribes together are openly acknowledging the full weight of what it means that they're in relationship with God. And it is a way of them all putting in front of each other.

Choose now, blessing or curse, life or death. This is what it means that God has chosen you as his people. And so it's a relationship. This is a relationship that has abundant blessings, but living out of alignment with those things can remove those blessings and invite curses. And so verse 14, the Levites shall declare to all the men of Israel in a loud voice.

So the Levites are the priests in Israel. They are the people who take care of the holy things of God. They are the people who are, you know, take care of butchering the sacrifices and making the sacrifices for the people at the tabernacle. But, but they. And so what this means is that the Levites are the ones who.

The whole nation is meant to see them as those who facilitate their relationship with God. And they have the honor of reading out the blessings and the curses. And so what they do here is they're going to read out the curses. This is what they do once they get in the land. Now remember, Moses is not going with them.

Moses is telling them what they are going to do once they get in there. Moses has to stay outside the land, though he doesn't get to inherit it. But they're going to have to read out some curses. And the way they're going to do that is those who are standing on Mount Ebal are going to represent the people of Israel and the curses that could come, and they're going to remember they have the monument built there on Mount Ebal. And so I just want to think of this idea of curses, real quick and define what a curse is.

A curse in the ancient understanding, because God, when he's writing to his people, he's, you know, writing to them in terms that they can understand, right? A curse is the use of words inviting spiritual powers to cause harm. So in this case, the spiritual power is the highest spiritual power. He is the Lord, right? And the curses come because the Lord is the One who created this land to respond to the faithfulness and righteousness and justice of his people.

And that's why blessing and cursing is linked to their obedience here. And so when the reading happens, you need to note that when they get into the land and they're going to have this celebration, they don't read the blessing in the celebration. Moses gives them the celebration in chapter 20 or the blessing in chapter 28. He tells them this is what the blessing is. But when they celebrate this together, they will only read the curses out loud.

Why? Why? Like, the blessing is important too, right? It's significant, too. Why only read the curses?

Because blessing is the state of existence that they have been invited into in their relationship with God, Right? Like it is the rest that God intends for them to live in. Like the abundance of the land that they've been given, their status as a nation, their safety and protection, their peace and prosperity, their joy, their hope, their future. All of this is because God has given them a precious gift. This is kind of just who they are.

This is what they naturally live in. And so the point of only reading the curses is to say to God's people, here's how you can remove yourself from the blessing. This is why they erected the monument on the mountain of the curse, Mount Ebal. This is why the only thing that they read out loud on are the curses. Because God's default posture towards his people is to bless.

You do not understand this about God in the way that you should understand this about God. His default posture towards you, his desire to call you one of his own, is that he would give blessing to you and share it into your life. Because he is a good father. That's who he is. But his people need to know that there are ways they can opt out of the blessing.

So let's read the curses.

Cursed be the man who makes a carved or cast metal image an abomination to the Lord, a thing made by the hands of craftsmen and sets it up in secret. And all the people shall answer and say amen, the word Amen, which is a word. They say this every time after every single one of the curses, the people are instructed to say Amen. So the Levites read the curse, the people say Amen. And the word amen is a word that basically means, lord, let it be, or truly it is so.

Or I agree, it is a way of kind of verbally signing your name to a communication with God. So the Levites are reading the activities, and all the people together are voicing their agreement to the curse. They say, you know, if we do this, then we agree to the curse that will come. So now let's be really clear. The curse is simply what happens when you disregard God and his ways.

But God is going to have them say Amen after every single curse to make sure that they, as a people, understand what it really means, that he is the God that they are in relationship with. And so I'm going to go through the rest of these curses. I'm not going to go into great detail with them, but we need to understand kind of the way of their implications. And if you're paying attention, I want you to see if you can notice a theme that is threaded throughout all of these curses. So cursed be anyone who dishonors his father or his mother.

And all the people shall say Amen. Cursed be anyone who moves his neighbor's landmark. And all the people shall say Amen. Cursed be anyone who misleads a blind man on the road. And all the people shall say Amen.

Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow. And all the people shall say Amen. Cursed be anyone who lies with his father's wife because he has uncovered his father's nakedness. And all the people shall say Amen. Cursed be anyone who lies with any kind of animal.

And all the people shall say Amen. Cursed be anyone who lies with his sister, whether the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother. And all the people shall say Amen. Cursed be anyone who lies with his mother in law. And all the people shall say Amen.

Cursed be anyone who strikes down his neighbor in secret. And all the people shall say Amen. Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood. And all the people shall say Amen. Curse be anyone who does not conform to the words of this law by doing them.

And all the people shall say Amen. That last one was like a blanket statement of saying, and all the rest of the law.

So maybe, maybe you're asking the same question that I asked when I read these 12 things. Why these 12 things? There are, I think 613, 612 depends on who you ask commands in the Old Testament or in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. Why these 12? Specifically these 12.

Why? Like, it's not that they are the worst ways to disobey, although some of them are pretty bad. I mean, you paid attention, right? You saw that. It's that with each of them, there is a theme.

You see, a significant number of the laws in Israel could be enforced legally and socially. With a lot of the laws in Israel, there were legal consequences and there were social consequences, right? People find out that you did some stuff that you shouldn't do, and as a result, you face some kind of judgment in the community. In the cases of many of these, the judgment was the death penalty.

So you remember at the end of Scooby Doo, right, there's always a guy who's like some monster or some ghost, right? He's disguised as some monster or some ghost and he's doing something bad, right? He's doing something he shouldn't do. And the team of investigators, right, with their Mystery Machine and their dog, right, they come and they catch the guy and they rip the mask off of his face and they go, aha. And the guy at the end always says the same thing.

I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling kids. That's right.

We are more prone to do evil if we believe we can get away with it. That is just who we are. The thing unique to all of the items that I just read is that they are all sins that you are very likely to get away with. Sins that you can commit in secret, or sins for which those who know that you did them will be very unlikely to turn you in. So guess what you can do each day to your neighbor's landmark when he's not watching?

Just move it a little bit. Oh, wait, next day, come out, move it a little bit more. Move it a little bit more. And suddenly my. My property is, you know, a yard, two yards, three yards wider than we thought it was, right?

My neighbor's not going to know about that, you know, or there's lots, there's lots in those 12 things about things that you shouldn't do with, like your family dishonoring your parents, all kinds of sexual immorality. Do you know who is going to take the longest to turn you in if they find out that you've done something wrong? Your family members.

You know, who doesn't have credibility or status when they come as a witness against you, because they saw injustice that you committed. The foreigner, the orphan, the widow. Nobody's going to listen to them.

Do you know who can't see you when you steal from them? The blind man. Every one of these sins are sins that you can commit and dilute yourself into thinking that because it was done in secret, there is no consequence.

And the point for Israel is to know this. What is hidden from people is never hidden from God.

So can I just tell you something about the weird digital world that we live in right now? You know, digital privacy, which I get that we live in a free society and we're like, you know, private this and private that. And I don't want the government and my stuff anyway, so that's fine, but. But digital privacy is a breeding ground for dark, secret sin. Like never before has it been easier to secretly make connections with strangers, or to secretly defraud and steal from people, or to create a secret life, or to secretly entertain lust, or to secretly participate in occultic or rituals.

And then you think about the fact that we've now added AI into this mix, and AI expands all of those opportunities in various ways. But just because it's secret doesn't mean it doesn't come with a curse. Secret sin is an open door to calamity in your life. It's harm to your relationships. It is harm to your soul.

It is harm to your awareness of how God wants to use you and the plans that he has for you. And if you are a believer in Jesus, you have been bought with a price. Your life is not your own. And even though you may experience the consequences of sin, you need to know that God is not like furrowing his brow at you. He is not seething in anger at you.

He has extended a hand to you and is saying, will you stop taking refuge there because it is a curse to you. It will destroy you. Take refuge here with me. I am the safe place. The reason he has the people read the curses is so that they will know when you are enticed to do things in secret that will destroy you.

And I am the safe place.

So can I tell you what I love about this passage? This is Moses telling them something like I said, that they're going to do without him present. He's giving them these instructions so that they can experience this moment together. And all together, those people are going to sit and experience the weight of what it means that the Lord of all creation has joined himself to them. And so they go through this ceremony and a building of a monument and a building of an altar, and separating into two groups on two mountains, a mountain of blessing and a mountain of cursing.

And they dealt with the reality that they all have a choice that is before them. And 12 times the people all together said, I accept the consequences.

And Moses as a shepherd, gave them these commands so that when they rest in the promised land of blessing that God gives them as his chosen and precious people, they would understand what it means to have a committed relationship with God. So, church, our main point this morning is this. Would you understand your commitment? Would you understand that you've been bought with a price? What Jesus paid for love God in your public life, love God in your private life, within the walls of your home, and love God in your secret life, the things that you are deluded to think that nobody else sees.

So what the first one I would say is that God loves you so much that he wants you to be free from secret sins. So listen, if you feel like a bit exposed right now, I want to let you know that that is not God trying to humiliate you. That is God inviting you out of hiding. See, as believers in Jesus, we do not live under the threat of the curses of Deuteronomy. We have a new covenant.

But those curses show us still that there is a God who sees all and knows all. And there is still an overall principle at work in the world. And it is this. That for those who disregard God's word, God allows us to reap what we have sow. And if you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind.

So let me say this bluntly. When we sin, we aren't usually thinking about the consequences, but the consequences are almost always far worse than the momentary pleasure of sin. And if we continue to sow privately into sin, we will reap very real consequences. And if we refuse repentance, the scriptures teach that God will. He's inclined to give us over to the thing that we're seeking.

And if there's one thing I know about secret sins is that they rarely stay secret forever. And so I just say there is a better way that God has given us than secret sin. Like, choose to live without secrets. Choose if there is something secret that has not been brought into the light, Would you choose to bring that secret thing into the light? Would you choose to repent and apologize to the appropriate people who have been damaged by your dark secrets so that you can somehow have the hope of freedom from that thing that traps you?

And then I just also, like, if you're Like, I don't know what that looks like. I'm afraid of the damage that it'll cause. I'm afraid of the people it'll hurt. Well, get counsel from a wise person who can help you navigate that. So maybe you've got a trustworthy friend, somebody that you can talk to.

But I just, I found that most people, we have what we need to take these steps, but we just don't want to take them. We're afraid of being exposed. But the reality is that when we take the step to bring things into light, that is what brings freedom. And so the last thing that I'll say then is that there are better things to do in secret. Matthew 6, 6.

Jesus talking to his people in the Sermon on the Mount says, but when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray. Your Father who is in secret and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. As we think about secret sin, I just tell you there are usually there are two big reasons that people run to secret sin. The first is that they are deluded into thinking that the sin is not all that bad. And the second is that they will believe.

They believe that they're going to find some kind of satisfaction from that thing. And Jesus counters all of that by displaying what the truly satisfied life looks like. Jesus found all that he needed for his life first at the throne of the Father. It was Jesus custom, it says in other places in the Gospels, it was Jesus custom to get away to a secret place place and spend time with His Father. The reason that we don't run to the Father or that we don't find it satisfying to be with the Father is because we do not understand his heart towards us.

We think that because we've been engaging in some kind of secret thing or some kind of thing that we've kept hidden, or some kind of thing. We know he doesn't like that he is now annoyed with us when we come to Him. And so we're just spending 30 minutes trying to wrestle through the annoyance that God has with us or the, the displeasure or the frustration or that he's tired of putting up with us. Right? And we just miss this point that God's default posture towards his people is to bless.

Jesus lived and died for your sins and rose again so that you could walk freely into the Father's presence and find his love and his blessing when you get there. And when you love God in your secret life, you spend time hearing him through his word and you spend time talking to him in prayer. And you spend time enjoying his presence. It provides abundant life and satisfaction that dead and cursed things could never hope to provide.

And so my shepherd's heart for us is that we would be a people who love God in our secret lives. Because that's where we become the kind of people who lead others into the blessing that God has to provide as well. So would you pray with me, please? Father, I'm grateful that you are a good and kind father to us. That your posture is for us to know that you love us, that you're inviting us to enjoy you, to know you in deeper ways.

And that your desire is to bless us. To bless us with the knowledge of relationship with you. To bless us with the reality of being joined to you, Lord. And not only that, but to bless us with the wonders of having the spirit of the living God take up relationship, take up life in us, take up residence in us.

And so, Father, this morning, as we go now to your table to communion to celebrate what the Lord has done for us, I ask that you would, by your Holy Spirit, conform us into a people who would pursue loving you in our secret lives. God, from that place we could open overflow into those who extend blessing to others. Thank you, Jesus. We pray all of this in your name. Amen.