You're Going to Fail and thats Good News — Deuteronomy 1

0:00 Good morning. My name is Abe Edwards, and many of you I know and some of you I don't know, but, I attended this church many years ago now. And, I was just talking with Justin and Heather before the service. I think when we were last here, they had one small child, Judah, who was about this big, and I had a son that was about this big. And now they're they're they're much bigger.

0:31 So, lots of lots of people have changed and some people have not changed. Denzel, you you haven't aged a day since we were we were last here but that's alright. That's it's it's good to be here. Let me just pray and then we can get into the word this morning. Father, thank you that you use broken people to accomplish your work in the world.

1:03 Pray that you would just speak to us today through your word. Pray that you would get me out of the way so that the spirit could just apply your word to our hearts in the name of Jesus our savior. Amen. Alright. I don't know.

1:20 I don't know if this is working. It is working. Look at that. We're gonna talk about failure today. Failure.

1:26 And, if you don't know, in my day job, I'm a math professor, and so I'm not talking about failing sort of in in your academic studies. You may fail in that as well, but today we're gonna talk about failure of a different type. And, I wanna start by reading a piece of classic literature, and I wanna see if you recognize this or not. I'll just... I'm just gonna start reading it, but I'm I'm gonna guess some of you know this piece of the classics that I am about to recite.

2:02 Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. It's five year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilization, and to boldly go where no man has gone before. If you've never seen this program, I don't know where you've been living, but if you've never seen this program, it's about the crew of a spaceship that travels around the galaxy and they just... They visit strange new worlds to to use the narrator's phrase, and they they encounter all of these, exciting adventures.

2:46 And they've made many sequels to this and movies and sometimes I wonder why are these kinds of programs so popular. I think for me, it's because a program like that allows me to experience the danger and excitement of strange new worlds without actually being in any danger. And when the episode's over, it's over and I just go back to my my normal life. And then one day, think shortly after we started having kids, I looked around and I thought, we are living now in a strange new world. So I'm gonna talk about what it's like to stand on the threshold of a new and frightening future.

3:33 And the text is gonna be, Deuteronomy. We're gonna start in Deuteronomy chapter one. We're gonna look a little bit in Deuteronomy chapter 30. So you could have one hand in each of those. And with your third hand, we're gonna be in Colossians chapter two.

3:48 But, it'll all be up on the screen as we as we go along. But the here's the here's the the sermon in one outline. We're gonna use the Israelites, the people of God, as our illustration. They stood at the threshold of the promised land. And as many of you know, it was a moment in which their fear loomed larger than their faith.

4:12 And even though God had promised to carry them into the new land, they didn't trust him. And even when he did carry the next generation into the new land, they failed to live according to his word. But then I also wanna talk about how God himself came to their rescue. How he alone changed their hearts in the same way that we are going to fail, but Jesus is going to be able to change our hearts. In our own strength, we are always gonna stumble and fall, but God promises that he will carry us through.

4:44 That's the sermon in one minute. So if you were in a hurry, you could go ahead and go. That's it. Nothing else I say is gonna add to this. And, as always, any time I speak, I always just wanna make it clear to people, I am primarily preaching to myself.

5:00 These are primarily things that the Lord is working on in my own heart that I am struggling with. And if the Spirit applies that to you as well, that is good. But unlike the Starship Enterprise, we are not exploring alien planets. But many of us are going into new worlds or possibly new phases of life. Some of us, this is parenthood.

5:22 What's that going to look like? For others, it's retirement. What does life look like when you're not working nine to five? Some of you are empty nesting and you're seeing your children move out of the house or you wish your children would move out of the house. Some of us deal with unexpected health issues, people going off to college, a new school, moving across the country for a new job.

6:19 Just a few thoughts on this. I think in a single generation, certain things that used to be unthinkable are now taken in our culture as unquestionable truth. You're not even allowed to question some of these things. Whether we're talking about sexuality or the use of technology, things which were once taboo, are now so prevalent in our culture that you're considered beyond the fringe if you even question these things. I'll you one example.

6:53 I'll do two examples. One is sexuality. In 1989, Andrew Sullivan wrote the first piece in a major US newspaper making the case for gay marriage. And when Sullivan did this in 1989, he was considered, by most people, beyond the fringe. That's crazy.

7:13 He was considered a wacko. But today, today, the majority of Americans think that gay marriage is a good thing. According to the US Supreme Court, it is a constitutional right. Twenty one percent of people in Gen Z what is Gen Z? That would be people who are in their late teens up through sort of their mid-20s, so people going to college today.

7:44 So according to The Washington Post, twenty one percent of Gen Z identify as LGBT. That's one in five. One third of middle school girls fall into that category. Now, they're not really in that category, but they identify as being in that category. And every time they do these surveys, those numbers go up.

8:08 I mean, honestly, I think about my own kids, it's like I'm being asked to raise kids on an alien planet. I mean, and by the way, thank God for the church, right? That you have each other, that you have a community of people who are walking with the Lord that can help with this. Can you imagine trying to raise kids outside of a Christ centered community? I know how people do it.

8:31 Or take the use of technology. By the 1980s, which was, I know, seems like a long time ago, but that wasn't really a long time ago. In the 1980s, there was a scientist at MIT who made a prediction about the growing popularity of computers. And what he said was, Computers won't just be a place where we go to do calculations. The computer will become a place where we go to live.

8:57 That was in the 1980s. In the 1990s, that same MIT scientist said, No, the computer will not just be a place where we go to live, it is going to be a place where we go to explore alternative lives and alternative identities. You're a lonely 65 year old man, go on the net and pretend you're an 18 year old woman. Or, maybe more mundane, go online behind an avatar or some false name and say things that you would never say under your own name. Alternative reality.

9:32 And now we have people who are so used to living online. I mean, I think about my own students at Michigan State. They are much more comfortable interacting with each other mediated by technology than they are face to face. I have a colleague who studies artificial intelligence. As far as I know, this person is not a believer.

9:50 He may be, I don't know if he is or not. But he told me, Here is a very real concern about children in the next generation. It is an open question whether children will be able to relate to each other in the way humans have done for centuries or whether they will choose AI for their deepest and most meaningful relationships. This future is coming so fast, it makes my head spin. And I know some of this sounds like science fiction, people falling in love with robots and all that kind of thing, but I see this every day.

10:24 I see it every day in the way that my students would rather interact with each other through texting, through YouTube, through TikTok. And I don't want to just put them down because honestly, I am not immune to that myself. Sometimes it is much easier for me to interact with people through technology than face to face. And the reason for that is I think technology is safer. When you and I interact face to face, you get to see the real me.

10:50 But when you and I interact through technology, I get to decide how much, if any, of the real me is out there. And I can set the level of vulnerability in that relationship as low as I want it to be. So this is not just a problem that the students have. I mean, is a problem that I face myself. And sexuality and technologies are just two examples of rapid and monumental change.

11:15 And it makes me think, Wow, how am I supposed to raise kids whose hearts are vulnerable to the movement of the Holy Spirit? That's my new world. Whatever your new world is, though, you've got to be wondering, how are you going to succeed in navigating it? So I want to think about another group of people. These are the people of God, the Israelites, who were about to enter a new land and they were also afraid.

12:00 Deuteronomy chapter one. What is Moses going to talk to the people about? Is he going to talk about military strategy, tips for living in a foreign culture, a guide to raising children? I mean, maybe a little bit. A little bit.

12:17 But mostly, what Moses does in the book of Deuteronomy is recount God's faithfulness and remind the people how frequently they do not trust Him. And I think I need to be reminded of those same things. Deuteronomy one: These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel in the wilderness East Of The Jordan, that is, in the Arabah opposite Suf between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazaroth and I'm actually just making up the pronunciations of these places. If you say it quickly enough, people will just assume you know what you're talking about. They're in the wilderness, they're on the borders.

12:56 Then we have this parenthetical statement: It takes eleven days to go from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea by the Mount Seir Road. I like how this is just inserted here, almost as like an aside. By the way, it takes eleven days to make this journey. How long had they been wandering around making this eleven day journey? Forty years.

13:17 It was supposed to be a journey of eleven days. In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses proclaimed to the Israelites all that the Lord had commanded concerning them. See, this is the second time they are at Kadesh Barnea. This is the spot where forty years previously their parents' generation had failed to go into the Promised Land. You remember that story?

13:37 God leads them out of Egypt, He leads them to the borders of the Promised Land, and He tells them to go in. What the Israelites did is they sent some spies into the land. This is in the book of Numbers. They sent some spies into the land and the spies bring back a report that is not altogether positive about the Promised Land. In Numbers 13 it says, They gave Moses this account: We went into the land you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey.

14:02 There is fruit, but the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. Numbers thirteen thirty one, We cannot attack those people. They are stronger than we are. And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, The land devours those who are living in it.

14:25 If I had to put my fear of raising my kids in this culture in one sentence, that would be it. The land will devour those living in it. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, eternally. But Moses reminds the people of God's faithfulness. He says, I said to you, don't be terrified.

14:52 Don't be afraid of that. The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you as He did in Egypt, before your very eyes and in the wilderness. You saw how the Lord your God carried you as a father carries his son all the way until you reached this place. That is what he had said to the previous generation. But then this terrible testimony, Nevertheless, you did not trust in the Lord your God.

15:17 Despite the fact that we have seen that God's word is true, we will not trust him for great things in the future. God had consistently proven his faithfulness to Israel. I don't think they could point to one time that God had let them down. And he had promised to carry them through until they could find rest and safety. But the Israelites responded to God's faithfulness with unbelief, with rebellion, with murmuring and complaining.

15:42 They were not persuaded of the love of God. And it made it very difficult for them to trust God. See, I don't I don't think it was Israel's sin so much that kept them out of their promise... That promised land as unbelief. I know unbelief is...

15:56 I know unbelief can be sin, but sin... Israel's sin could have been covered for by atoning sacrifice, but their unbelief is what keeps them out of the land. They were not convinced of God's love for them. And it is very hard to trust a God if you're not sure that he loves you. And you know the rest of the story.

16:18 It took forty years for that generation of unbelief to die out in the wilderness, those people who were adults when they left Egypt. And finally, a new generation, if to keep the Star Trek thing going, the next generation, is standing at the borders of the Promised Land. And Moses is going to give them a pep talk. He's going to spend the next 28 chapters of Deuteronomy telling these children about the faithfulness of God. And we don't have time to go through all 28 chapters, so we're just going to do a little bit of a little bit of it here.

16:51 But if you read through the book of Deuteronomy, and Moses is talking about how to walk in the land and how to be faithful to God and what ethics looks like. And if you're reading this, the narrative tension is building and you're thinking, Oh, will the people of God be able to enter the Promised Land and walk worthy of their calling? Are they going to be able to do it? So we get to Deuteronomy 28 and Moses is saying, Now if you don't carefully follow all the words of the law which are written in this book and do not revere His glorious and awesome name, says, If you don't do these things, what's going to happen? Well, what's going to happen is a whole slew of curses are going to come down upon them.

17:28 And the worst one, the very worst thing that could possibly happen is this: You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess. The Lord will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other. And he goes on to say, You will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, neither you nor your parents ever worshipped. In other words, if they are not faithful to God, they will be captured by this culture and they will worship that culture's gods. But maybe they will be faithful.

18:32 Say that again. We're about to enter the land. You just told us about the curses and now you're saying, when all these blessings and curses I have set before you come true and you take them to heart wherever the lord your god disperses you among the nations. So, you're telling me it's going to happen? We're going to fail.

18:51 We're going to be dispersed. The worst thing that god says could happen if we break the covenant will in fact happen? Yes. That's a bummer. It's like Moses is the worst motivational speaker of all time.

19:05 He's saying, let me point this out guys. I just spent 28 chapters telling you what to do. You're not going to do any of that stuff. No, you're not. You're going to mess it up.

19:15 You're going to fail. And eventually, you're going to be dispersed and you're going to be exiled. Even with the instructions, I'm going to fail. I cannot succeed on my own. Here's the thing, I know what to do.

19:29 I know what god's word says. But this is a Roman seven situation. I don't understand myself. The good things that I wanna do, I don't do them. But those bad things that I don't wanna do, that's what I keep doing in my own strength.

19:50 Moses knows that all of his preaching, all of his law giving, all of his exhortation, it will all be useless unless these people get some outside help. It doesn't matter how much he reminds them of God's faithfulness or how carefully he explains the laws for right living. To live in the new and scary land, the people need a power beyond themselves. Which is why, after Moses tells them about their certain and upcoming failure, he gives them the good news. And I think we see a glimpse of the Gospel here at the end of Deuteronomy.

20:26 In Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse six, Moses says this, The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul and live. Now you might be saying, What is all this about circumcising your hearts? This seems slightly violent and painful, Old Testament sounding. So we let Scripture interpret Scripture here. This is where you need that other hand in Colossians chapter two.

21:06 In Colossians chapter two beginning in verse six, It says, for in Christ, this is Colossians two six, for in Christ, all the fullness of the deity dwells in bodily form. And you have been made complete in Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority. And then the same language comes back that Moses has been speaking about. In him, you were also circumcised in the putting off of your sinful nature with the circumcision performed by Christ and not by human hands. And having been buried with him in baptism, you were raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.

21:55 So I think that to have your heart circumcised means to be raised to new life by the power of God. In our own strength, we're going to fail, so God has to lift us up. We break God's covenant, so He keeps it. My sin separates me from God and sends me into spiritual exile, so God does whatever it takes to bring us back. And what it takes is the death of his own son.

22:26 What it takes is the death of his own son. See, here's what I've come to realize. In my own strength, I am not able to raise my kids right. In my own power, I cannot ensure that they walk through this new and scary land and come out unscathed. I cannot be the perfect father who carries his children against these cultural currents.

22:48 One way or another, I'm going to fail. But I'm starting to think that that's okay because it's not up to me to circumcise their hearts. That's the work of the lord. It is not me who will cause them to love Jesus. It is god.

23:06 Sometimes I pray for my kids at night and then I tuck them in and I close the door. And I am so thankful that Jesus continues to intercede for them before the throne of God long after I have said Amen. That the Holy Spirit is really the best parent in this relationship. Their heavenly Father will carry them all the way. Just like he will carry you into whatever your next season of life is.

23:48 Isn't it interesting that of all the attributes of God, the hymn writer could have picked in that verse, Thou changest not thy compassions, they fail not. That's probably a sermon for another day, but I thought that was interesting, that of all those attributes, God's compassion never fails. If you are standing on the borders of a new and scary land, you're wondering, Will you make it? Will you succeed? Will you stand strong against the cultural forces?

24:18 Well, I've got news for you. You're going to fail. At some point, in your own strength, you're going to fail, and then God can really get to work. I read a story recently about a racehorse. The name of this racehorse is Zippy Chippy.

24:59 And the new owner got Zippy Chippy and he got him a new jockey and he got Zippy Chippy new food to eat and a new training regim... Regimen? Regime. He got him new training stuff. And and he he got Zippy Chippy back out there but Zippy Chippy kept losing.

25:18 Loss after loss after loss. In fact, Zippy Chippy lost so many times that he was banned from racing at most of the popular racetracks. Because who wants to have a horse that's just a laughingstock? And eventually, the new owner said, That's it. That horse just can't win.

25:36 So he retired Zippy Chippy and sent him out to pasture. But when Zippy Chippy wasn't racing, he became sick. And he wouldn't eat. He was depressed. I don't know how they knew that, that the horse was depressed, but they knew somehow.

25:54 Because the thing is racing was in his blood. And when he wasn't doing it, when he was not doing the thing that he was made to do, zippy chippy, suffered. And so his owners decided that they would trot him out there. And an amazing thing happened. Huge crowds started showing up to watch Zippy Chippy run.

26:17 The grandstands were packed. And on 09/10/2004, having lost 99 races in a row, Zippy Chippy entered his one hundredth race. And he came in last. That was it. And he retired.

26:36 He's never won. This is the losingest racehorse in history right there. But actually, I was very inspired by this loser of a horse because he just kept running. The actual outcome was less important than the fact that he just kept doing the thing that he was made to do. And I love this picture of the grandstands packed with people cheering on Zippy.

27:02 Oh, come on. Oh, he failed again. Come on. Oh, yeah, he lost again. It's like a Hebrews 12 situation, right?

27:31 Or Colossians two again: you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive in Christ. It's not an if, is it? It's a when. When you were dead, God made you alive. He forgave all our trespasses and canceled the dead ascribed to us.

27:48 All the decrees that stood against us, He took it away and nailed it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. If you have been raised a new life in Christ, if God has changed your heart, then he triumphs despite your outcome. In fact, I think sometimes God triumphs because of our failure. In Christ, all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ, you have been brought to fullness or completeness.

28:29 This is not completeness the way the world counts completeness. This doesn't mean you're the complete package. It doesn't mean you have no need to grow or that you have reached perfection or you can stop running. His power is made perfect in weakness. You know, Paul wrote the book of Colossians in part to address false teachings that were creeping into the church.

28:49 But if you read the book of Colossians, you don't really see him debating the culture and pointing out the craziness of the world that was around him. Instead, what does he do? He talks about the perfection of Jesus Because that's what's real. Everything else is going to pass away. That's what's real.

29:14 The fullness of the deity. I want to close by reading just a short piece from a book that Megan and I read with the kids last summer. It's called Theology. And the title pretty much says it all. It's a theology book for kids.

29:34 And I will say this, sometimes these books that are written for children though, they have a lot of things in there which are very helpful for adults. And I think I got more out of it than the children did, but let me just read you a little bit about the fullness of the deity. Here's the reality, people. God, like the conductor of an orchestra, is at work directing each part of His creation. Nothing moves without His command, and nothing happens outside His control.

30:02 No one, not even the angels in heaven can stop god's work in our world. He knows your name. He planned where you would live. He could tell you any morning the number of hairs on your head which for some of us is getting fewer every week. He knows the exact number of days you will live and how each of them will go.

30:23 He has already planned how to use everything in your life for good, Even things you don't want to happen. Whatever your new world is and whatever giants live in that land, I want you to know this. God is there too. God is there. Karl Barth, who you may never have heard of, was a Swiss theologian.

30:53 He had a profound impact on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And Barth wrote, God is with us, meeting us as Redeemer and Perfecter at the threshold of the future. That's where we stand at the start of this new year. We are all at the threshold of some kind of future. And God stands at the borderlands.

31:19 So feel free to fail because you will find both salvation and completeness in Christ. He longs to carry you as a father carries his children until that day when we see him face to face. In the promised land. Let's pray. O Lord, you know our weaknesses.

31:52 Prone to wander, Lord, we feel it. Prone to leave the God that we love. But we are so grateful that you have taken our hearts, that you have sealed them, that through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we know that the outcome is secure. And I pray that this year, even in those moments when we stumble and fail, remind us that you lift us up, that you are going to carry us home. In the name of Jesus, our Savior, we pray.

32:31 Amen.