Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / April 14, 2024 | Deuteronomy - What Does God Require?

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April 14, 2024 | Deuteronomy - What Does God Require? · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Good to be with you.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Could tell which of uh you have been watching The Masters lately by your clapping on that last song.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: You got some real golf claps going on.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Some real, you know, silent behind the back.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um going through the book of Deuteronomy together.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this morning, I want you to kind of think of to get started.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um maybe you've seen it on the news the last couple of weeks, um, but you local news, you might have seen a big excavator uh sort of over by the river, uh removing some of the homeless or unhoused kind of camps that are over there, whatever your preferred nomenclature is.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: And um what we're gonna talk about this morning is when you saw those things, see those things, find out about those things, um, what is the first thing that happens in your heart?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh what do you think about when you think about people who are in vulnerable positions?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, do we immediately go to a position of questioning?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh do we immediately go to a position of defense?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or do we have a heart that is reflective of God's justice?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll we'll talk about that this morning.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: But kind of for context, we need to back up because we are in, we're in Deuteronomy, and that's where everything begins for us right now.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: And as we're there, last week, we talked about Moses being the intercessor or the advocate for the nation of Israel.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And what Israel found out uh was that Moses, more than they had realized, um, had sort of stood in the breach for them as they had sinned and were deserving of destruction, and that Moses had prayed before God and asked God for his mercy, and that if it had not been for Moses, right, if it had not been for him, that the nation of Israel wouldn't even be here today.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: God had been willing to sort of restart the whole thing with Moses' descendants, but because of Moses, they had come through.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as we move forward from that, what we also have to see is that the nation of Israel, there's kind of this like sort of call and response a lot of times as we're reading the book of Deuteronomy.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, it's Moses speaking to the nation as they're about to go into the promised land.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of it, like if you've read through the book, you know that a lot of it is repetition from things that have already happened, or it's Moses like retelling stories.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why is because either the nation of Israel is given new information, or they are told to remember previous things that happened, and then the call and response is, okay, now you act, right?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like you remember that God rescued you, okay, now act.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: You remember that God loves you, now act.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the point is to draw them into this fellowship with God where they would be a generation that is faithful instead of the previous generation that had failed.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're in another one of those sort of call and response moments this morning.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll be in chapter 10, verse 12.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so what you should be thinking about as we begin reading this is that the nation of Israel is basically asking the question.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, okay, Moses, you you told us we were closer to the brink than we've ever realized.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like we have been, we're we're not deserving of God's love, but he gives it to us anyway.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: What can we do?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Who is it that we worship?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us about God.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what Moses speaks into.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: He says, And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you except to fear the Lord your God by walking in all his ways, to love him and to worship the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Keep the Lord's commands and statutes I am giving you today for your own good.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: The heavens, indeed the highest heavens, belong to the Lord your God, as does the earth and everything in it.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yet the Lord had his heart set on your ancestors and loved them.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: He chose their descendants after them, he chose you out of all the peoples, as it is today.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, circumcise your hearts and don't be stiff-necked any longer.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, one of the things that is comes up again and again in Deuteronomy is that part of the reason why Israel should be not just thankful, but should be have this complete and total devotion to God, is because they would recognize that they have been chosen or elected for no other reason than God had made a promise to their ancestors and that God loves them.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: That Israel is not special in herself, that Israel is not a mighty nation in herself, that Israel has not done anything to deserve this choosing by God, but rather that they were chosen and redeemed out of slavery in Egypt, and that this quality that she is at a privileged position, right, is something that they should continually sort of be reminding themselves of.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like we are chosen, loved by God, we are his people, he is our God, we've made this covenant.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so God has done all of this, but most of the time Israel thinks it's a burden to be his chosen people, and they complain a lot about being his chosen people.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: But what God wants, what Moses wants, but moreover, what God wants, is that Israel and Stid would begin to develop and reflect some of the eternal characteristics of God.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: So some of the things that have described God for all time and even beyond time, the things that describe who God is and his character, that Israel would begin to embody some of these attributes.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of them that God is going to bring up here is his justice.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: But before he does that, before he brings up how he wants Israel to focus on his justice, he says, but the key to doing it is that you would be a people who have circumcised hearts.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, circumcision physically, we have a uh diagram that I'm going to show you.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um circumcision is physical, but what he's talking about is a spiritual circumcision.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: The spiritual circumcision is the same principle, right?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: The reason they had it physically was to set them apart physically from the other nations.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: But now, spiritually, the problem is he's like, okay, well, you look different physically, but in terms of the way that you act, in terms of the way that you live, eh, it's kind of hard to tell the difference.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: You were supposed to be a holy and set apart nation, and instead, you have hearts that do not look like me.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: You have hearts that do not reflect me, you have hearts that do not follow me.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so what God says is you need to do all of these things, but moreover, in order to do it, you are need to move from being stiff-necked people, people who don't bow, right?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: People who don't move, they're stubborn, into being people with circumcised hearts.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that phrase actually is going to be something that we want to adopt as well, because even as we move beyond what it means for Israel specifically, and into our own lives, we are supposed to be people who have circumcised hearts as well.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: That in the way that our hearts, right, feel and think and move.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: When we talk about God, when we learn about him, when we uh hear the things that grieve God's heart, like those are things that should grieve our hearts as well.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so that is kind of what we're going to push into now.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so, one of the ways, one of the many ways, but one of the primary ways that God wants Israel to have his heart is by reflecting his justice.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: For the Lord your God is the God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awe-inspiring God, showing no partiality and taking no bribe.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the resident alien, giving him food and clothing.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: You are also to love the resident alien, since you were resident aliens in the land of Egypt.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: You are to fear the Lord your God and worship him, remain faithful to him and take oaths in his name.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: He is your praise, and he is your God, who has done for you these great and awe-inspiring works your eyes have seen.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Your ancestors went down to Egypt, seventy people in all, and now the Lord your God has made you numerous, like the stars of the sky.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the focus of their entire lives is upon this God who has no peer and has no equal, right?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Being the God of gods and Lord of Lords doesn't mean that he is sort of first among peers, but that he is completely and totally different.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: We know just a quick example would be like back in Exodus and the ten plagues, that one of the reasons revealed for God doing those is actually a neat study to do another time, but that each one of those plagues represented one of the Egyptian gods.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so that part of the way that God brought about destruction upon the nation of Egypt was by destroying their false gods and their hearts and their minds.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyhow, when we talk about this God that Israel is following after, who has no peer, no equal, one of the qualities that describes him is his perfect justice.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And his perfect justice in part means that he is, when he makes a law, he's not going to bend it, right?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: He is not going to be sort of open to a great argument that sways him.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, he's not going to be bribed.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that we can do that is going to make the righteous judge change his righteous judgment.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: He is always going to do what is good and what is fair.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the ways that this plays out is a way that we're really familiar with.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: When we look at the Old Testament, we're like, man, when he sends a plague amongst the nation or the nation of Israel for their rebellion, when he swallows up Korah, like the ground opens up and swallows the entire family and all the rebel leaders in Israel, or when he brings destruction on a sinful nation that Israel's going against.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like those are all aspects of God's righteous judgment.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: But that same righteous judgment, which is unable to be bribed and unable to be swayed, and is always fair and right, looks at those who are in positions of need, who are vulnerable, who are oppressed, who are helpless, and wants to lift them up.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because what is happening in the nation of Israel and across the world is that there is injustice happening.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so you might be kind of surprised because normally we'd look at this and we'd say, well, yeah, God wants us to help the vulnerable and the needy and the oppressed and the those who are in danger.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like God wants us to lift them up.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we might think that the main argument would be, well, he is loving and he is gracious and he is kind.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, the tack that God takes is he says, it's because I am a righteous judge that I hate injustice in this world.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so it does not just happen in the court of law, but as we're about to see, that this injustice for the vulnerable and the needy is something that comes out financially and socially as well, and God wants all of that to end.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so as Israel sees God as being this fair and impartial judge in his execution of justice, so they are to be fair and impartial as well, both in the case of punishing sin and lifting up those who are not receiving opportunity, who do not have advocates, who do not have people standing up for them.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Quickly, because this phrase is going to come up again, resident alien is not Independence Day, like beep bop boop, take me to your leader kind of alien, okay?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Resident Alien is immigrants who would be coming into the nation of Israel.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh as they're doing that, right, the nation of Israel is this beacon of hope in the Middle East where it's at.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the nation of Israel here in Deuteronomy has people uh sort of throngs of immigrants are coming in because they are captivated by the righteous laws and the good God that is leading the nation of Israel.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: They see the prosperity, they see all the good things happen for them, they see a blessed nation, and they want to be a part of that.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so the laws of Israel, and you can go back, it's not just Deuteronomy, you can go back, you know, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers as well.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like there are always provisions in place for how the commands and structures and laws for the nation of Israel also apply to the visitors who are trying to become a part of the nation.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Why are they included in this list?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because they were not part of the original sort of elected nation, yet they have desired to join it.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so they should be treated with the same kind of quality.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: So there are a lot of examples that I could give you for the ways that God uh sort of wants Israel to carry this out.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I have three here, but more kind of what I want to push on, though, is that what God is asking the nation of Israel to do is not just some sort of fleeting desire.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's not just like, hey, and as you're looking around and you see those who are in need, lift them up.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: But what God has done is instituted through laws and regulations the way that Israel is supposed to provide and handle these kinds of people, the orphan, the widow, the immigrant, people who are in rough positions, right?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: That there are institutions within the covenant itself that God has made with them that they are supposed to carry out in order to help.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, Deuteronomy 24, do not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether one of your Israelite brothers or one of the resident aliens in a town in your land, do not deny justice to a resident alien or fatherless child, and do not take a widow's garment as security, meaning if you were giving a loan and uh this uh widow was unable to pay it, like you're not going to take the last thing that she owns, her cloak, in order to secure the loan.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you from there.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore I am commanding you to do this.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: When you reap the harvest in your field, and you forget a sheaf in the field, do not go back to get it.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is to be left for the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, that's repeated two more times, having to do with grapes in a vineyard and olives in an olive tree.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what's going on here is that these laws that God is making mean that, you know, uh the protection and the uplifting of those who are vulnerable is a part of the covenant.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so, to be very clear, like if they were to shirk the wages of the immigrant, if they were to deny justice to the orphan, or they were to financially abuse a uh vulnerable, helpless person, if they were to shake their olive tree twice, these things would break the covenant.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is not just something that God says is a good idea, but he has institutionalized it.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if they would carry these things out, not only would they be obedient to God, but they would in turn experience the blessings of the covenant.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because remember, Israel has a very specific relationship with God, different than we have today, where if they're obedient to the covenant, they experience blessings.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: If they reject it, if they break it, they experience hardship.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's kind of this like symbiotic thing here where God says, Take care of these people, and as you do, you will be blessed in addition to it.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: But the heart of God is seen, and that in really as we see the way he's constructed the nation of Israel, he says, You must provide for these people because I am righteous and just.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so you cannot treat them with injustice.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Deuteronomy 15 has a similar theme, right?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: If there is a poor person among you, one of your brothers within any of your city gates in the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your poor brother.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Instead you are to open your hand to him and freely loan him enough for whatever need he has.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Give to him, and don't have a stingy heart when you give.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And because of this, the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you do.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: For there will never cease to be poor people in the land.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: That is why I am commanding you open your hand willingly, excuse me, to your poor and needy brother in your land.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, uh within that whole passage, you're probably drawn to the second to last sentence there, that there will always be poor people in the land.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that is quoted by Jesus in a different context in the Gospels.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the point here, though, the point of there always being poor people in the land is not apathy.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: The point is not that there will always be this demographic of people who are suffering and experiencing injustice, that there are always these people who need an advocate, and therefore, you know, they will always remain, so just continue as you are doing.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: But rather, the point that Moses is drawing them into is he says, there will always be people who need your open and unstingy hands extended to them.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: There will always be people who are in need and in this state, and what is sad about that truth is that he reveals earlier in chapter 15 that that doesn't need to be the case, but rather because of our selfishness, there will always be poor people.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to what he says.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is just prior to that passage, verses four through six.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: There will be no poor among you, however, because the Lord is certain to bless you in the land, the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: If only you obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow every one of these commands I am giving you today.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: When the Lord your God blesses you as he has promised you, you will lend to many nations but not borrow.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: You will rule many nations, but they will not rule you.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the point that he's making, right, is that uh the the demographic of those who are experiencing injustice and oppression, in this case specifically financially, that that is a that poverty does not need to persist in Israel, that they will be so blessed materially that there is no reason if they would carry out the commands of God that they should have people who are suffering in that way in their land.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: There might be people of that kind who are suffering in that way in other lands, but Israel is going to be so prosperous, so mighty, so blessed, that if they extend their hands to those who are suffering, that they need not continue to have poor in the land.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it is only through, as he says, right, the passage we just looked at previous, but comes after this one.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: But he says, there will continue to be poor in the land.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so you must continue to open up your hands to them.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think that the I'm just saying the average American Christian would be shocked, mostly because the average American Christian doesn't read the Old Testament, but the average American Christian would be shocked by the way the many ways in which God protects the vulnerable and the way that he has brought laws and institutions to Israel.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: In such a way that is so divergent from the way that our society is structured that we think that Israel was wrong for doing it.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Quick examples, as I recognize I am in lukewarm water right now, you can look at Leviticus 25 in the year of Jubilee.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Every 50 years, the nation of Israel's economic system was entirely reset, meaning that if you had sold land, if you had sold property because you were destitute, right?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, land being so central to the promise of Israel.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you had sold land, if you had sold property and it went to other people, it reverted back to you.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you bought land uh four years before the year of Jubilee, all you did was pay them for four years of leasing the land because you never really owned it, because it would go back to them.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: It um made it much more difficult to accumulate vast generational wealth.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: It also made it much more difficult for the sins or the mistakes, the unwise actions of people uh in one generation to adversely affect their children and grandchildren, right?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because these things kept resetting.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um I already talked with you about olive trees not being shaken twice, but every seven years, the nation of Israel was supposed to leave all of their land, all of their farmland completely fallow and not plant anything so that the volunteer crops, sort of the stuff that had been left behind and then sprouted up in the next spring or whatever season, um, that specifically that seventh year's harvest was for the poor, the needy, the fatherless, the orphan, the immigrant, and the land to come in and to be able to take as much as they needed and wanted.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And as provision for that, the year before the sixth year, God provided three years of harvest for them, for that year, for the year that things would be fallow, and for the year that they were seeding and could not harvest yet.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we see is over and over and over again that God has is providing and has called Israel to not just have a heart for these people, right, for the vulnerable, but to follow these commands and to do things systematically that would provide for them and help them.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: We see this heart come through in uh one of King Solomon's better moments.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: He started out as a really fantastic queen.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: The 3,000, or the 3,000, the 1,000 wives sort of took him off the rails, but he started out pretty great.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think he probably could have told the difference between 3,000 and 1,000, but that's beside the point.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, as King Solomon, though, is speaking here in a moment, we're in Psalm, I'll show you Psalm 72.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: What I want you to see is the heart of a leader who has been called to sort of set the pace for a nation that is supposed to be reflective of God's eternal and divine attributes.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: They are supposed to look on earth like what God does in heaven.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And as he is doing that, you can hear the weight and the burden of what it means to always see the vulnerable and the needy, and how what this is doing is it is he is flowing through the mind that God is a perfect and righteous judge, and how that affects his job as king.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: God, give your justice to the king, and your righteousness to the king's son.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: He will judge your people with righteousness and your afflicted ones with justice.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: May the mountains bring well-being to the people and the hills righteousness.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: May he vindicate the afflicted among the people, help the poor, and crush the oppressor.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: For he will rescue the poor who cry out, and the afflicted who have no helper.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: He will have pity on the poor and helpless and save the lives of the poor.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: He will redeem them from oppression and violence, for their lives are precious in his sight.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that last phrase there, for their lives are precious in his sight, that the Hebrew in that is actually that their blood is valuable.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it would probably take twenty minutes to go on a detour of why that phrase is particularly significant.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: But what it means is that what God, the way that God views people in part, is because uh they are all sharing the Imago Day.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: They are all made in the image of God.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody has the same color blood flowing through them.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so what Solomon is saying is that just because of somebody's situation where they are at in life, whether it has happened to them or they have brought it upon themselves, it does not matter.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: They are still valuable in God's sight and they are not to be seen as lesser than.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is such an important point because it drives us back to God that every person that he makes is valuable and made in his image, even though we look and sound different, right?
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so, whether it is the poor and the needy, the fatherless, the orphan, the immigrant, whatever it is, those who are different or who are suffering or oppressed or any of those things, they are valuable, their life is valuable.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: And because we are a nation that should value life, what this means is that we should care about them.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, this is a reflection of God's righteous judgment, because they experience injustice.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, the Bible says we are not to be surprised when we fall short of this or when our culture falls short of this because we are corrupt and we are sinful, and individually we are, and you could say like organizationally we are.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: That one of the huge sections of this sermon that got cut out was looking at the prophets who came in when Israel was about to go into exile, and all of the things that the prophets said to the nation of Israel, because if if you're familiar, right, that they were given the covenant, and it's like if you are obedient to God, you'll experience blessings, if you disregard God, if you rebel against him, like all you will uh experience difficulty, but ultimately, if you like keep running down that path, there's an eject button on you in the promised land.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they come to that point.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the roles of the prophets is sort of this dual nature of both reminding them of their sin and calling them away from it, right?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: You need not go into exile, but you will if you continue to do these things.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what these prophets do, and it's not just one of them, but many of them, is they go, you have failed to care for the poor and needy in your nation.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, you haven't just failed to care for them, you oppress them.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: You steal from them, you become rich upon their backs, like you do things that are not reflective of who God is and what he represents, but instead, you represent the evil one, you represent injustice.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: And as they're doing this, right, we understand God's heart here and what happens when he sees people who do not have, we could use Deuteronomy's language, a circumcised heart, a heart that is reflective of God, not just in what we say, right, but in what we do and how we feel.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: So one of those prophets that has this, you know, language of condemnation for this injustice is Isaiah.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll skip over the parts where Isaiah says all those things.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: But later on in the book of Isaiah, chapter 61, Isaiah gives a hope for the future because what's presently obvious is that Israel is going to go into exile because she fails to turn away from her sins.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so he is giving a hope for the future about all of these things that are going wrong and how they will be fixed.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: He says, The Spirit of the Lord God is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Roughly 770 years later, in the town of Nazareth, Jesus goes to the synagogue in his hometown.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: And in the synagogue, uh the rabbi hands him the scroll of Isaiah and asks him to read.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And what is available to Jesus is to pick any passage in Isaiah that he might read to the congregation.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: And there are some real bangers in Isaiah.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of things he could pick, a lot of things that would lift him up in his status, particularly even Isaiah 53, talking about the suffering servant and the one who's going to die for the sins of the world.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, Jesus chooses this passage to be the one that reveals his authority and his heart to the nation.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is what he quotes in the synagogue.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of the Lord God is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so what God is showing here, right, is that throughout his ministry, Jesus is going to be the one who is fulfilling what Isaiah was talking about in chapter 61.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or at that point in the scroll, right?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because we didn't have chapters back then.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: That what Isaiah was talking about here is something that, and Jesus even says this in a synagogue.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus reads this, sits down, and everyone kind of like looks at him, and he goes, What you've heard today is true.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, this is me.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm paraphrasing.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: But uh interestingly, what Jesus doesn't do when he's reading this passage is actually finish it.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: See, Isaiah 61, 1 through 3 continues on.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: And this is how this passage finishes.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is the part that Jesus did not say.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the day of our God's vengeance, to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in Zion, to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair, and they will be called righteous trees planted by the Lord to glorify him.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Presumably, Jesus did not read this passage because this is referencing his future coming.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: The section that he read in Isaiah 61 had to do with his earthly ministry until he was crucified and resurrected, right?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: He came to mend the hearts of the brokenhearted, to provide hope, to sort of lift up the faces of those who are dejected, and to provide them with a sort of a future that they can look to and understand that their justice is coming, right?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, this is the frame of mind that God is introducing these ideas, that it is from his justice that the assistance, that the love, that the help for the vulnerable and the needy and the oppressed overflows, that it comes from his righteousness that we would lift up these people.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so part of Christ's message, and this is why so much of his ministry is for people that the world has rejected.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: But in addition, you are the ones who need the gospel message the most.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because there will be a period here where you will continue to experience injustice and unrighteousness.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: It is not going to be fully fixed because we live in a broken world until the consummation, until all things are made new, and I'm the one who runs the show.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Until that point in time, there will be those who desired justice but never received it.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: There will be those who needed aid but were turned away.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: There will be those who looked for a friend and could not find one.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: There will be those who needed an advocate but suffered unrighteously instead.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so then Jesus presumably leaves off this section of Isaiah 61 because this is the hope of the future, that when Christ returns, all of these things will be made right.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: And there are some of these folks, right, who, because we live in a world where our hearts are not circumcised, do not follow after God's nature, we will continue to see the vulnerable suffer.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: But the question becomes, right, what should we do?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because we live in the in-between.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: We live in the time waiting until Christ returns.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: And absolutely what we are called to do is still be people who have circumcised hearts, still be people who feel and think and hope the way that God has, that we'd be transformed into the image of Christ, that we would look more like Him every single day, right?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is part of our duty.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's the sanctification process.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of like what we're working on until we wait for Jesus to return, knowing that we will never reach full perfection, but that we have still been called to be righteous as Jesus is righteous.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: So what should we do?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: How do we handle this?
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because it is still true today that there are vulnerable people, there are people in need.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: And there is both a clear answer and a much more difficult answer.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: The clear answer is that as people of God, our hearts should break at a fallen world where these things remain.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Bar none.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like as a foundational statement, when we look into the world and we see the poor, the needy, the vulnerable, the oppressed, not just in our nation, but in other nations as well, our hearts should break for them, because God's heart is breaking.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because that should not be the case, and in fact, it need not be the case, but yet it is.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, though there are passages in the Bible that talk about, hey, with wisdom, this would be Proverbs, there's some in Thessalonians, right, and elsewhere, with wisdom you might be able to avoid some of the struggles of those who are poor or vulnerable, right?
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: That there is sometimes an element of agency involved in these things.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: The overwhelming nature of how the Bible talks about relating and caring for those who are in need is not looking at them with a ridiculing eye, asking first, well, how did you get into this situation?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: That is not the prevailing concept in Scripture.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: It is not something that God instructs Israel to do, and it is not something that we have been instructed to do.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that wisdom and discernment are never applied, but I am saying that a heart that breaks for these things is one that first thinks about the individual who is made in the image of God, the one who has the same blood flowing through them as everybody else, and who is in need of a savior, just like we are all in need of a savior.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Not that they're necessarily unsaved, but that everybody is deserving of that same care.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so the clear part of this, right, is that we must have a heart that cares for the vulnerable, and our actions need to reflect that and not undermine it.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we go back to what we started with, which is in the last couple weeks, seeing the excavators sort of removing some of the camps around the river, right?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the question that I'm not trying to get at is what's the perfect move to make?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: What I am asking is when you see that happening, where does your mind go first?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think of the individual who whose home is being picked up by an excavator and who's being told to look to an app to see where they can move in the city before the city has found any additional housing for them?
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: And even here in mid-May is going before the city council to figure out what we are going to do to try and fix this problem.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the question becomes: are we, as the city of Topeka, going to do anything that reflects our heart to care for the vulnerable and needy, or are we going to talk about property value?
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we look at these things, I'm not saying that there are no specifics, there are no uh sort of direct connections to be made.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: But that the foremost concern for us here is that we would have a heart that breaks for these things because from that flows all of the specific direction, right?
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: So this is where it becomes much more difficult as you say, okay, well, what exactly should we be doing?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I am not skilled enough to take on, I don't know enough, I'm not smart enough to take on immigration policy and welfare reform.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: But what I can talk about is what our heart should feel when we see people who are struggling.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've got all the room in the world to run on that, because this is the way that Scripture speaks about these things, right?
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Not exactly that there's a perfect example in the Bible for what to do with the border, but rather that um when you see somebody who is vulnerable in need, or that they are bust or flown to a place where they are uh there are not resources to take care of them for a political point, that you would not rejoice in that, but you would think that that is a shame because that undermines their status as the Imago day and that they are being used like cattle instead of people to prove a point.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's a problem.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's a problem.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't need to be able to make a grander point to just say that our hearts should break when you find people in these situations.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so part of the solution is that we consider what does it mean to be vulnerable today, but the truth is that many of the categories are the same.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: It is still going to be the orphan, it is still going to be those who are in social situations that are not advantageous for them, right?
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: It is not the same for widows today or widowers today, but particularly widows, as it was back in the Old Testament, but nevertheless, people who are still in vulnerable social situations, who don't have advocates for them, and also, as we would see with the resident alien, with the immigrant, those who are in racial or ethnic minorities in an environment.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like who needs advocacy, who needs people to help them, who needs resources so that they are not instantly sort of just filling out the poverty line on the next census.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: And in that space, then kind of becomes our responsibility.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, when we consider who is vulnerable today, right?
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: When we consider what needs to be done, a plethora of options come to the surface.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to go very far to begin to find ideas for how to help.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where I say that my point in talking to you is not trying to tell us exactly as a church what we must do specifically to fix these situations.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: But rather, and again I say that this is the biblical point, is that if our heart is in the right place and the Holy Spirit is guiding us in these sort of areas, that the options presented before us become much clearer when God is instructing us on the way that we should go.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not trying to be particularly charismatic in that regard.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: What I am saying is that we have to be able to trust that just having a heart that loves the vulnerable and desires to act on their behalf is good enough in part for our direction, because there are going to be a multitude of ways that we could solve any one of these problems.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, what is often obvious is that the fruit of what we are doing individually and institutionally and systematically is that the heart was never there in the first place.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so we must solve and fix the broken heart that is, and therefore circumcise it.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then we will begin to see these things.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: So my firm belief is that we can seek the Lord in prayer and ask him for direction on this, and that he will answer us because we are praying in accordance with his will.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: We are desiring to be more like Christ, and we are looking for God to give us answers.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: But what I am afraid of, even though I kind of give the caveat, there is wisdom and discernment that is necessary in all of these things, I get it.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: But that too often a calloused heart hides behind the shield of caution and wisdom.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes we say that we are being cautious and wise.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: In reality, we have a heart that is glad, or at the very least, apathetic, with regard to people who are in vulnerable situations.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to pray for us.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: I want us to be reminded that the main reason we are doing this is because we desire to reflect God's justice in the world.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: And as he does, that means there should be no injustice.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: And where there is injustice in the world, we should be moving as a people, individually, organizationally, all of those things, right?
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: But that we're doing it because God sees everybody as made in his image, because he made them, and that, like Solomon said, Lord, you see their lives as valuable because of their blood.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we come before you and we are reminded of what you kept reminding Israel.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, they were former slaves in Egypt, and therefore they should have mercy and grace upon those that they encountered.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: They should remember how far they had come.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we recognize that none of us are deserving of your mercy and grace except for Christ.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, Lord, you have given it to us because of the blood of Christ.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so, God, as we encounter people that maybe we have been taught, maybe just through sort of our culture, our experiences, whatever it is, Lord, that have made our hearts hardened to those who need help.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: God, might we reflect Jesus more?
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: Might we have a circumcised heart?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: God, that is looking out for those who are vulnerable and in need and who are oppressed.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: And God, that we might take specific action, whatever that is.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: And God, that you would direct us in that way.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: As a church, the leadership of our church, Lord, us individually, our city, God, those in positions of power and leadership, God, that we would make specific decisions that would help those who are in need of help.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: And God, finally, as we think about people who are in need of help, that the first reaction that comes to our mind, Lord, is that they are in need of mercy just as we are in need of mercy.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: That they are in need of grace just as we are in need of grace.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that they deserve it, Lord, just as much as we deserve it.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: And God, in that space, that they need a Savior just as much as we need a Savior.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we love you and we thank you and we ask you to direct us in all these things.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: Love you.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: See you next week.