|
We like to compartmentalize our lives, don’t we? When we work, we work. When we play, we play. And never the twain shall meet. We divide our day, our week, our month, our year, and our life into time slots. We allot so much time for working, for leisure, for shopping, for vacation. We like pigeonholes. They give us some semblance of order and control in our otherwise out-of-control lives. But there is a problem with pigeonholes. Do we, without thinking, pigeonhole our Lord? The Lord doesn’t exactly like to be relegated to a pigeonhole. He doesn’t cotton to cameo appearances. He’s not satisfied with just a one-hour time slot on a Sunday morning. He wants a bigger time slot. In fact, He wants to be included in every time slot, in every pigeonhole. In our Scripture reading this morning, Moses brings that truth home. In effect, he says: PUT YOUR LORD WHERE YOUR LIFE IS!
1. In Your Heart
Moses was an old man. The time had come to say ‘so long’ and ‘happy trails’ to his beloved people. He dearly loved those people that stood before him. They had gone through a lot together. He had led most of them for nearly 40 years in a nomadic wandering through the Sinai wilderness. He had watched this new generation grow up before his eyes. He had witnessed and shared their growing pains. He knew they had some tough years ahead of them as they invaded, conquered, and settled this land that the Lord was giving them, the Promised Land. He realized that the youthful faces he was addressing had been too young to remember that frightful day nearly 40 years earlier at Mt. Sinai when the Lord shook the mountain and encircled it with fire and smoke as He gave His people the Law through Moses. They hadn’t experienced all the hardships at the hands of the Egyptian taskmasters that their parents had. They hadn’t seen those great miracles of deliverance beginning with the ten plagues and culminating with the parting of the Red Sea so that they could escape the Egyptians, who were in hot pursuit.
Oh, they weren’t soft by any means. In fact, just the opposite was true. They had 40 years of hard training in the desolate wilderness of the Sinai. They were hot. They were on a roll. No one could stop them. They had mowed down nation after nation that dared to stand in their path. Now they were standing on the threshold of the Promised Land in the days just prior to the most devastating invasion the world had ever seen. Moses knew full well that no one could stand against the Lord’s battalions. But he knew, too, that there was trouble ahead – not from without so much, but from within. It wasn’t the spears and slings of enemy warriors that worried Moses but the deadly darts of the devil. Moses knew his people only too well. He had witnessed firsthand these past 40 years the way they blew hot and cold. He knew how quickly they could leave God in the dust and turn their backs on Him. He knew they had a penchant for being their own worst enemies.
Our text takes us to the banks of the Jordan, where Moses is delivering his farewell address, his last will and word to his people. Moses impressed upon Israel how important it was to remain faithful to God and obey His Word. With some sage advice, he tries to protect them against the perils of prosperity: “These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you." In effect, he says: PUT YOUR LORD WHERE YOUR LIFE IS!
“Schma, Israel, adonai elohenu adonai echad!” That’s Hebrew. That was the creed that Israel was to live by in their new land: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Moses had a reason for such a dramatic beginning to his farewell speech. It was what made Israel different, what set them apart from every other nation. They had just come from Egypt, a land that worshiped all sorts of gods. They were about to enter Canaan, where they had a different god for nearly everything under the sun, including the sun. Moses was making it absolutely clear that God is not one of many. He is one alone. He is one of a kind. He is undivided and worthy of undivided love. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.” PUT YOUR LORD WHERE YOUR LIFE IS. Begin with your own heart.
Now, make no mistake. Love for God isn’t automatic. It isn’t self-generating. In fact, by nature, we can’t love God because of our sin-polluted hearts: “For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.” Our hearts are veritable cesspools. Ancient sins in modern garb parade across news channels in sickening procession: street muggings, cold-blooded murder, abortion, rape, robbery, divorce, adultery, drunkenness, drug abuse, and the list could go on and on. By nature, our hearts want nothing to do with God.
And yet God, in His amazing love, wants those hearts for His very own. He loved us when we were unlovable. He sent His own Son to clean up the cesspool of our hearts, to cleanse us from our sins. John 3:16 says, “God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” He rescued us from ourselves. He cleaned up our filthy hearts and worked saving faith there, which in turn generated love for Him. “We love because He first loved us.”
Now then, the question arises: How are we to show our love for the Lord? 1 John 5:3 helps us out: “This is love for God: to obey His commands.” Jesus Himself said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” Our devotion text says something similar: “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.” Salvation is a love affair. If the love of the Lord is in our hearts, it can’t help but show itself in our lives. This love isn’t something that we can pigeonhole, not something we can compartmentalize. He wants our undying, undivided devotion. He wants our unswerving allegiance. Paul gives us some clues as to what God wants from us: “I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.” From those on whom His amazing grace rests, He expects total commitment. Put your desire toward Him, your devotion to Him, your delight in Him, and your dependence on Him. PUT YOUR LORD WHERE YOUR LIFE IS…
2. In Your Home
“Impress them (these commandments) on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Our children are impressionable. They will either be impressed by the world’s values or by our values as parents. If we don’t teach them, Satan will. As parents, we have the clear directive of Scripture: “Bring up (your children) in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Without a doubt, Christian education must begin in the home. We parents are really the first Bible that our children read. What kind of lessons are they learning from us?
Remember to PUT YOUR LORD WHERE YOUR LIFE IS. First, ensure He is in our hearts and then invite Him into our homes. Remember, He doesn’t like to be pigeonholed. He wants to be Lord in every part of our life. He wants to be Lord in our home. Even at home we have a tendency to pigeonhole Him. We think it is sufficient to teach our children short mealtime and bedtime prayers. That is a good start, but that is all it is – just the beginning. Let’s incorporate Him into the very fabric of our lives. Let’s make Him part of our day-to-day experience. Natural situations arise daily in the family circle for sharing, witnessing, and teaching about God. We might use a sickness to talk about how God is the Great Physician and is the one responsible for restoring our health. We might use a birthday to remind our children of their re-birthday, how their baptism was really the biggest day of their lives, the day they became a child of God. We might use a quarrel to talk about God’s forgiveness. We might use a death in the family to talk about eternal life in our heavenly home. We can talk to and about the Lord with our children as we go about our everyday chores: while shaving, washing dishes, or whatever we are doing. Speaking about God is an art that needs to be learned. Let’s practice it until we talk about God as naturally as we talk about the weather.
But let’s not let it stop with just talk. Let’s not employ the philosophy: ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ Let’s be examples to our children. Good examples. Which child do you think will grow up to be a faithful Christian with a deep love for the Lord – the child who is at church because his parents said, ‘Go’ or because his parents said, ‘Come?” Come with us. Saints, let’s practice what we preach. Our child’s Christian education will begin in the home. CLHS is a supplement to and not a substitute for Christian education in the home.
Moses gives one final word of advice: “Tie them (the commandments) as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” The Jewish people mistakenly took this literally and strapped boxes (called phylacteries) to their foreheads with Bible passages in them. They also mounted mezuzahs on their doorframes with these Bible passages in them. They missed the point. The point was that Israel wasn’t to hide God’s words in a book. They were to keep them always in mind as they went about their daily lives.
Saints, never forget who we are: We are God’s chosen and redeemed children. Let’s encourage each other to live that way. Let’s not be embarrassed to love the Lord and live His way. We don’t need to be ashamed that we attend church with our family and send our children to a Christian school. Let’s wear our Christianity proudly. Let’s hold it out for the entire world to see. PUT YOUR LORD WHERE YOUR LIFE IS!
Don’t think we can’t have any fun as Christians. Don’t think we have to carry a Bible under our arms and have our hands folded and our heads bowed all day long. That’s not what God is looking for. He wants us to go about our business as usual. He just wants to go along with us. PUT YOUR LORD WHERE YOUR LIFE IS! Amen.
| 
