Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
I wonder how many ‘contracts’ you’ve entered into during your lifetime? If you’ve ever purchased a home with a mortgage, that was a contract. If you’ve ever been married, your wedding ceremony was a contract and the rings you exchanged, the wedding license you signed, the vows you spoke were all part of the binding love contract. I wonder if you’ve ever experienced a BROKEN contract? So have you ever thought about what a contract with God would be like?
In our journey with Moses and the Israelites preparing to leave the desert and enter the land of promise, Canaan, we’ve come to a moment of ‘contract’ as recorded in Deuteronomy 26. The previous several chapters are filled with advice from Moses and a restating of many of the laws and precepts God had given His people for living God honoring lives in their business dealings, their marriages, their social responsibility to each other and much more. God’s intention with these Israelites is summed up in this statement Moses spoke to them: “The LORD will establish you as His holy people, as He promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the LORD your God and walk in His ways. Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD and they will fear you…” (Deut. 28:9,10)
Do you see God’s purpose? God wanted all people, every nation ,who would ever see these Israelites, or hear about them, to understand what it is like for God and a nation of human beings to live in a holy relationship, a contract relationship! God wanted people everywhere to desire the relationship they would see the Israelites had with God… a covenant relationship, a blessed relationship. In many ways God wanted the nation of Israel to be the envy of the world. Now let’s look at the contract Moses laid before the people that day, we find it in Deuteronomy 26:16-19.
Moses said to the people: “The LORD your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and laws; carefully observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.” Would you agree, my friends, this is the bedrock, the foundation, of any contract? It means faithful obedience to the contract and full commitment of heart and soul, to live out the details of the contract with integrity. That’s how a strong marriage works, right? When Moses said these words I wonder if the people looked away from him, maybe turning their gaze back out to the desert and reflecting. They’d spent 40 years roaming around out there because their parents and grandparents, the generation whom God had rescued out of Egyptian slavery, had broken their contract with God!
They had refused to trust God or follow His commands even though they had promised they would! (Exodus 24) They made a golden calf idol, even though they promised they would forever worship only God! (Exodus 32) Then they refused to follow God into the promised land, falling back in fear of what they imagined they might encounter over there, rather than trusting God and all the powerful miracles God had already performed. (Numbers 14) So their judgment was to wander in the desert till they died, and then God would offer the contract opportunity to the next generation, those now standing with Moses looking over at Canaan. It was now their turn to decide their fate and that of their children and grandchildren... would they choose to live the contract relationship with God that He offered, or would they fail as their parents had?
Moses continued: “You have declared this day that the LORD is your God and that you will walk in His ways, that you will keep His decrees, command and laws, and that you will obey Him.
And the LORD has declared this day that you are His people, His treasured possession as He promised, and that you are to keep all His commands…” (Deut. 26:17,18) WOW, what a statement, what a contract, what a covenant promise between Almighty, Creator, Holy God and one nation of people, the Hebrews, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whom God renamed Israel, thus these people are called ‘the Israelites’… God’s people! Look closely my friends, do you see the two contract statements, like vows in a marriage ceremony? The people pledged their allegiance to Almighty God as their only God and they declared they’d walk faithfully in God’s ways and keep God’s commands unwaveringly. God declared that these people would be His people. A contract was being spoken between God and one nation of people.
But that contract day Moses proclaimed one more very powerful promise from God to His people: “The LORD has declared that He will set you in praise, fame and honor high above all the nations He has made and that you will be a people holy to the LORD your God, as He promised.” (Deut. 26:19) Oh my! Look at them, normal looking people just like you and me, but look deeply into their eyes. These are sons and daughters of generations of slaves, do you see the sense of inadequacy, of low self esteem in their eyes? These are a people who’ve wandered the desert for 4 decades, many of them have been born out there in the desert. Do you see a look of worthlessness and purposelessness in their faces? These are people who have only what little they can pack up and move regularly as they follow the cloud, do you see a feeling of poverty? The words Moses just spoke seemed ludicrous to them. What could it mean that they and their descendants would be “…set in praise, fame and honor high above all the nations…”?
Several generations later, during the reign of King Solomon, the Bible describes a time when Kings and Queens from other nations came to seek wisdom of Solomon, and pay him honor as wise leader of a great nation. 1 Kings 10:23 records it this way: “King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart.” And even in our day, do you notice how much respect is paid to Israel by many nations of the world? Israel has become a recognized global leader in education, science, technology, medicine, engineering, fresh water management, economics, a healthy democracy and so many other ways. Considering the centuries of global ridicule and even attempts to annihilate them, including most recently the holocaust, it is clear the hand of God’s blessing remains upon Israel. Can you see the evidence?
The people standing that day with Moses could not possibly imagine what God’s promises would be like for their descendants, but they knew one thing.. God can do anything, and God is faithful to His promises, and therefore a covenant contract relationship with God would be living a miraculous life! Thus the significance of Moses’ closing promise from God for them: “…you will be a people holy to the LORD your God as He promised.” (Deut. 26:19) Because no person or people is perfect or holy in our natural sinfulness, God is calling the Israelites to recognize He desires them to be a people consecrated to God, set apart to live God honoring lives, as His commands permeate their lives. It is also a statement pointing forward to the day Jesus would come and make it possible for anyone to be forgiven of their sin and live in holy relationship with God!
Let’s pause and reflect. What is the contract relationship God is offering you and me today in 2022 as we trust Jesus Christ to be our Savior, and experience the full work of God in our redemption, our justification, our adoption, our regeneration? And what could holy living look like for you and me with the Holy Spirit of God alive in us as our counselor, as Jesus promised in John 14:16,17,26? In closing today, I invite you to read 1 Peter chapter 1 as the answer to those questions, and listen to this worship song which celebrates the contract relationship God offers you and me today…
Today’s Scripture is Deuteronomy 26:16-19.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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