Remember God in plenty and in lack

Can you think of a time that life became really good, and suddenly you forgot God or at least drifted away from Him? Maybe after graduation your income increased and you have more disposable income than you previously had and all of a sudden your focus on God started shifting away? Or can you think of a time that things were really difficult and you forgot God? Maybe in sickness where you have wondered why the sickness even came in the first place and your reliance on God wavered? Our passage today is dealing with the two: plenty and lack.

The Israelites have experienced God’s deliverance from Egypt. And now Moses is preaching to them as they are about to enter the Promised Land. As Ian said last Sunday, they are at the brink of entering the Promised Land and he is preparing them for the spiritual challenge of facing both plenty and lack in their life in the Promised Land. So I have three headlines today:

• Remember God’s faithfulness in plenty (Deuteronomy 6.10-15)
• Rely on God’s Faithfulness in difficulty (Deuteronomy 6.16)
• Reasons for Obeying God Deuteronomy (6.17-25)

1. Remember God Faithfulness in plenty (Deuteronomy 6.10-15)

And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.

God’s plan is to bring the Israelites into the promise land where there is abundance, every good thing you can think of - fertile land, orchard, and good water systems. Moses knew that the plenty will be good but would pose a different temptations to what they have experienced in the wilderness or Egypt. The question is with the plenty God has promised them, how should the Israelites respond? They should continue to serve the Lord and not go after other gods. We would wonder why would they go after other gods? Because the people of Canaan would tell them that the other gods (Baal and co.) were the ones who gave them the plenty – the rain, the crops, the successful breeding, etc. The temptation is to question whether the Lord can do agriculture – yes, he can do miraculous stuff like manna in the wilderness. But can he give rain and crop growth and fertility, etc? The Canaanites would have said, “Ah, you need to trust our gods for that – they’re the experts in that”.

Jesus was tempted same way by Satan in Matthew 4.9 when Satan said to him, “I will give you everything – all the kingdoms of the world – if you’ll worship me”. But Jesus responded by saying “No! God my Father alone is the source and giver of everything - we are to look nowhere else for anything”.
What is the equivalent of that to us today? What are gods in our culture that influence us to forget or at least drift away from God? We have plenty in the west and it’s easy to attribute it to science and Technology. We attribute our healing from sickness to that medicines forgetting that God is using the medicines and doctors to heal us. We attribute our income to that wise decision I made or thinking that promotion came about because of my hard work. How easy is it for us to think that our hand gave us all these: NHS, good economy etc. We should be careful while we enjoy those things that we always remember that all that we have are gifts from God. We should not just accept the gifts and forsake the giver which is what is common in our society today. But unfortunately the cycle of forgetting God repeated itself in the history of the Israelites especially in the time of Judges. God will bless them and they would prosper and their heart will be set against God by worshipping other gods then God will allow chastisement so they their focus will turn to him. Deuteronomy 6.15b:

…lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.

Moses warned them about the consequences of forgetting God - which is the anger of the Lord. In our time we don’t seem to recognise the danger of prosperity and success. We know it by heart but deep down we always fail to realise that it applies to us as well. Have we not seen that in the last year alone during the pandemic? Are we not eager to get back to normal, plan for the future, go for holiday? So what is Moses instruction here? Do not forget God. To my second point:

2. Rely on God’s faithfulness in difficulty (Deuteronomy 6.16)

You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.

The difficulty at Massah was not having enough, lacking something, needing something – in that case, water. The Israelites were so thirsty in the wilderness that they doubted God and demanded a miracle from God. Moses knew there would also be times in the promised land of not having, lacking, needing – which present a different temptation. So if Deuteronomy 6.10-15 is about the temptation of plenty, Deuteronomy 6.16 is about the temptation of difficulty. The Israelites tested the Lord by saying, Is the Lord among us or not? (Exodus 17.7):

And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

So difficulty led them to question whether the Lord was with them – or even real. The implication is, we’ll only keep trusting in you if you do everything we want you to, when we want you to, and protect us from all difficulty. In Matthew 4 Satan tempted Jesus to test his Father in the same way – ie, to presume he would protect him from all difficulty. But ultimately, the Father’s will was for Jesus to go to the cross not to protect him from difficulty, but to lead him through difficulty. And Jesus’ response was to trust his Father all the way through to that worst difficulty of all. So we shouldn’t interpret difficulty as God’s removal of care or protection. We should respond to it with continued trust and obedience rather than demands and ultimatums.

How do we test God? Well, for example, in sickness when praying for God’s healing underneath we may be saying unless you heal me and take away the sickness I will reconsider serving you. In joblessness when praying for that job we’ve applied to we may be saying unless I get this I’m going to doubt whether you really care about me. The trouble of this life may lead us to question the love of God for us or push us to demand a quick answer from God, but as Jesus has taught us in his response to temptations we should respond with continued trust and obedience.

3. Reasons for obeying God Deuteronomy 6.17-25

What Moses does next is to give the people of Israel the antidotes to the temptations of plenty or lack. The antidote is to trust and obey God and so Moses gives them reasons for doing that. One reason is that obedience is right by God (Deuteronomy 6.18):

You shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord

ie, above all we obey the Lord to please him, because that’s the right way to treat God that loves us so much that he sent His Only son to die in our place. That’s the right way treat the one that did everything to save us from the condemnation of sin. The other reason is that obedience is good for us – obedience and blessing are two sides of the same coin (Deuteronomy 6.18):

that it may go well with you and that you may go in and take possession…

Deuteronomy 6.24:

And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes…for our good always.

What does it mean for us on this side of covenant the new covenant? Under both covenants that is, the old and new covenants, entry into relationship with God is by grace, by redemption. Acceptance with God depends on his grace. But under both covenants, enjoying relationship with God and experiencing his promises in our own lives depends on obedience. Eg, if I disobey God, I won’t enjoy relationship with him because it will be full of his displeasure and discipline – just like Josh my son won’t (so much) enjoy relationship with me if he’s being persistently disobedient (not that Josh is disobedient to me), since it will mean there has to be more discipline as part of our relationship. The relationship itself doesn’t depend on his obedience – the relationship is a ‘given’ I am his father and he is my son (as is our relationship with God – given by grace). But the enjoyment of the relationship, the experience of the potential blessings of the relationship does depend on his obedience to me. For example I may give him a time out for disobeying or take away some privileges. And the same goes for our relationship with God. We have to faithfully obey God to enjoy good relationship with him. Obedience does not earn us God’s blessings but is the channel through which we enjoy the goodness that comes from relationship with Him.

And for those of you who are parents, guardians, uncles or aunties. It is good we explain the reasons for obeying and trusting God so our children, nephews, nieces will not think that following God is all about dos and don’ts. That’s what Moses went on to explain from Deuteronomy 6.20. So what do you say to your son when he asks, “Why do we live like this? Why do we obey these particular commands that are so different from the people around us? Are they really worth it? Are they really good – when they’re harder than the standards other people live by, and when they make you stand out for abuse and bullying?” The under tone of these questions is “Is obeying the Lord really good, really best?” Answer: Deuteronomy 6.21:

Then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand...’

Remember what life was for us when we were obeying someone else – Pharaoh. That was not good, that was slavery. Deuteronomy 6.22:

And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes.

And remember how the Lord in his goodness and love stepped in to rescue us through mighty deeds. Deuteronomy 6.23-24:

And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day.

And remember how his whole goal was to give us a good land and to give us commands that were for our good. Doesn’t that motivate you to trust God and trust that he wants our good and that obedience to him is good for us? For us the equivalent is looking back to the cross and how Jesus rescued us from been God’s enemies to becoming His people. These need to be our motivations to obeying God. When life becomes difficult or we when we are enjoying one good thing or the other remember what we were before our salvation and what Jesus did for us. Let that motivate you not just to live for God but to also tell others about Him. Starting with your children, if you have them. They need to hear from us what Jesus did for us at the cross because only understanding and accepting that will bring them into relationship with God.

To recap, remember God in plenty and rely on God in difficulty, and remember that Jesus died for you and you have got every reason to obey and trust Him and tell others.

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