Elevate - The Story Pt 7 - Choose Life

The speaker discusses the importance of following God's laws and instructions in order to experience His blessings and presence. The Israelites, despite being God's chosen people, struggled to fully trust and obey God, often turning to false gods and engaging in sinful behavior. God emphasizes the need for obedience and warns against adding or subtracting from His commands. The speaker references the story of the Israelites worshiping the false god Baal of Peor and the consequences they faced. The Israelites are reminded that there is only one true God and they must remain faithful to Him. You're still God's son, you're still God's daughter because you put your faith in Him and have trust in Him for your salvation, knowing that it's His righteousness and not yours. But if you don't walk according to this Word, and you don't walk according to the leading of the Holy Spirit in your life, you are short-circuiting the promises and the blessings of God that He wants to pour out abundantly in your life. Welcome to Elevate from Authentic Life Church in Mobile, Alabama with Pastor John DiQuatro. We hope it builds your faith and helps you to live a life for God that you've always wanted to live. We hope it inspires you to be a fully devoted, authentic follower of Jesus Christ. Enjoy the message, and welcome to Elevate. We are continuing in the storybook. How many all read chapter 6 for this week? Did you all read it? So last week, we discussed how even though these people, the Hebrews, were God's special people, Abraham's descendants, they knew about God. They knew about Abraham. They knew about Isaac and Jacob and Joseph. They knew all the stories, and they were God's special people, but they didn't feel like God's special people. They were in slavery for 400 years, and so God begins to do something as He leads them through the wilderness to the land that He promised to give them, the Promised Land. He begins to show up. He begins to have His presence come and dwell among these people, something that no other God was ever able to do. Again, showing Himself as the one true God and showing the heart of God that He wanted once again, just like back in the garden with Adam and Eve, He wanted to dwell right in the midst of His people. And so He comes as a cloud and lightning and thunder on the mountain. He comes as a pillar of cloud on the tent of meeting. He becomes a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, that when it lifts, they all move on from that camp, and then when He comes back down, they all settle into that camp, and they're following God, and God's presence is dwelling in the midst of them. So now God is there. They've experienced His glory and His presence now. They don't just know about God, they're getting to know who God is and the character of God, and now that sense of being God's special chosen people has a real tangible feel to it, right? Because now they've been rescued from slavery, they're in the wilderness, they're growing and God's dwelling right there in the midst of them and teaching them and instructing them. And it's from that point that we pick up the story, and if you read in chapter 6, it talks about the wanderings of Israel throughout the wilderness, and there's so many things that happened in so many stories, and so I hope that you read it, and I hope that you've internalized those moments where God was intervening with the Hebrew people, but see, now they're wandering through the wilderness, they're on their way to the promised land, the land of Canaan, which is the flourishing land that God had promised to Abraham. And so we're going to look at Deuteronomy 4 here in a second, but we're in this place now. They've come out, God's revealed His presence, and now God is beginning to establish laws among the people. These now become the rules of engagement. This is how you are going to relate to your God. In order for me to be your God, there are some things you're going to need to do to show the world that you are set apart, and because if my glory is going to reside in the midst of you, I need you to be a holy people. These laws are going to give you godly character. They're driven by love and not by greed, and these laws that I give you are going to atone for your sins in your life so that my presence can continue to dwell among you and that you will truly be a holy people. That's what the majority of the book of Leviticus is. It's kind of a tough book to read if you've read the book of Leviticus. It's law after law after law about how the people will atone for their sins and how they will live differently than all the rest of the world that was following all these pagan gods and doing all these detestable, sinful things. They're learning how to be God's people, and they're learning through the law, and so you'll see that some of those laws are what we know as the Ten Commandments, and God gives Moses the Ten Commandments, and they are the foundation of our entire code of law here in our nation. It's the Ten Commandments, and He gives them dietary and social laws like how to treat one another, how to be a good brother, how to be a good sister, how to be in good community one with another. But then He gives them a system of sacrifices so that when you have sinned, when you have fallen short of God's glory, and if you want to continue to remain in the presence of God, you've got to be cleansed of that sin, and the only way to do it is to make a sacrifice. And so that's what He's showing them, and now we get here to Deuteronomy 4, and we look at the first couple of verses that says this. Now Israel, hear the decrees and laws that I'm about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. Do not add to what I command you, and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you. You saw with your own eyes what the Lord did at Baal Peor, the Lord your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed the Baal of Peor, but all that you, but all of you who held fast to the Lord your God are still alive today. Now we're going to get to this Baal of Peor so you understand what happened there. We'll do that in just a moment, but the Lord speaks to the people and He basically tells them this. Listen up. I'm going to give you a bunch of laws, and this is the way that we're going to relate. I'm determining how we are going to relate. If you follow these laws, then life is going to work for you. You're going to be blessed. You're going to be protected. You'll enter the promised land, but don't take these laws and add to it. Don't add your sense of what you think is right and don't take away from it because you don't agree with the laws that I've given you, but do just what I say. Now I know it's 2022 and it's hard for us to hear something that firm, right? Like do it this way or else, right? If somebody other than our boss or our parent comes to us and says, do exactly like I say, most of our culture would just laugh at that person because that's where we are as a society today, right? We struggle with authority. We don't trust authority like we used to trust authority and, and maybe the Israelites were looking at Moses that way a little bit like, all right, Moses, are you sure about all this? But here's the deal. It's not Moses giving the instructions. It's the God of the universe. It is the God that created them, that called them up and out of slavery and has promised them a blessed life in a promised land. And up to this point, they had no relationship with God. They knew about God. They knew about Abraham. They knew how they got there to Egypt. They knew that God did powerful things to lead them out of Egypt, but most likely they still believed in other gods. That's the way it was then. They were in Egypt for 400 years. Egypt worshiped a lot of false gods. And so God was helping them to shift their way of thinking and their belief system to understanding this. There is one God. It's me. It's Yahweh. I am God. When he revealed himself to Moses, Moses says, who should I say sent me? He said, I am that I am. There's one God, one true God. So he had to let them know, you don't get to add to what I am telling you today. You don't get to subtract from it, but we'll find as they're wandering through the wilderness and really as them as a nation going forward, they continually, this becomes their consistent problem that they keep adding on to what God gave them. How to relate to him, the laws to follow what they're supposed to do. They keep adding on to it. They worship God, but they also worship the gods of whatever area they found themselves in. That's why he reminds them in the scripture that we just read about what happened when they began to worship the Baal of Peor. Baal was a false god and many, many pagan cultures worshiped particular Baals. These were false gods. And here's what happened. I want, I want you to see this is, this is how God handled them in the beginning. Verse 25, verses one through three, while Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women who invited them to the, to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate the sacrificial meal and bowed down before these gods. So Israel yoked to themselves to the Baal of Peor and the Lord's anger burned against them. You know, he was serious here. God was really serious and he's, as he was establishing a people for himself through which would come the redemption of all mankind, he wasn't going to put up with this kind of nonsense. He just wasn't. The Israelites decided that what they saw all around them was better than the law that God had been giving them. So they was, they saw the women and they saw the customs and they saw the culture and they saw their gods, the great pagan gods, and they thought it was better and they chose to turn from their God, the one true God, to worship these other lesser false gods. And so in that story, you can read it in the book of numbers. God ends up punishing the ones who turned to worship a false God. Many, many of them died as a result. And so he's reminding them, listen, I am God. I am God, no one else. And so they're wandering in there and they're struggling. They're struggling as they wander to, to, to serve God faithfully. And as God has shown himself to be glorious, to be powerful, that, that he loves them and that he's, he's fighting for them. They continue to complain. They continue to say, we just want to go back to Egypt. We just want to go back there because we had a lot more to eat. They were getting tired of manna, right? They didn't want to just eat the manna that fell from heaven in the morning, the supernatural provision of food for them that they didn't have to grow. They didn't have to hunt. They didn't have to do anything, but pick it up and make a, and bake some bread with it. But yet they were complaining. Right? They, they want to go back to Egypt. They wanted garlic. They wanted, they wanted meat. They wanted to sit around pots of boiling stew. Right? That's what they're saying. So God is just struggling with the Israelite people to get them to see. Don't you know that you're my people? Don't you know that I love you? Don't you know that all these other gods are false and what you had in Egypt was horrible and terrible and I am taking you into the promised land because you are my special people. And it was really hard for them to get it. And so after 40 years of wandering, and the reason it took 40 years was because they didn't get it. And you can read that story. And I believe it was in chapter six, about when they went to, uh, to, to scope out the promised land and they all got afraid because the people were big. They were all Toby size, but they got afraid. And as, as they were afraid, they said, no, there's no way we can go. There's no way that. And, and, and God's like, what are you talking about? Don't you remember? I took you out of Egypt. Right. And so because I said, listen, y'all aren't getting it. You're just going to stay here till every one of y'all dies. And your next generation is going to go into the promised land. So they had to wander for 40 years in the desert. So they get towards the end of the 40 years. And this is what, um, this is what God tells them in Deuteronomy 28, and it's a little bit of a long scripture. So I'm going to go read it with as much feel that possibly can. If you fully obey the Lord, your God, and carefully follow all of his commands, I give you today. The Lord, your God will set you high above all the nations on the earth. Now, remember they are on the edge. They've wandered for 40 years. They're about to enter into the promised land. And this is what he's telling them. Verse two, all these blessings will come on you and accompany you. If you obey the Lord, your God, you'll be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock, the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks, your basket and your needing trough will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. The Lord will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction, but flee from you in seven. The Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The Lord, your God, will bless you in the land he has given you. The Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on earth. If you keep the commands of the Lord, your God, and walk in obedience to him, then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the Lord and they will fear you. The Lord will grant you abundant prosperity in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground in the land. He swore to your ancestors to give you. The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but will borrow from none. The Lord will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the Lord, your God, that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom. Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today to the right or to the left. I'm going to bless you whether you're whether you're home or you're away. I'm going to bless your business. I'm going to bless your homes and your families. You will be invincible against your enemies and you will be feared because I'm going to fight for you and everything you do. Everything you put your hand to will be abundantly blessed if you obey the commands that I give you today. It sounds like a good trade off. Do what God says. Walk in the abundance of God's blessing. Do what God says. Walk in the abundance of God's blessing. Now let me stop here a second. Let me tell you this. God still promises blessing for obedience. When you look in the Word of God, all of the all of the promises of blessing, right? His love for you, unconditional will never change. You can walk from him away from him a hundred times and he'll still accept you back just like the prodigal son. But his blessing, his blessing, those promises in the Word of God, they are all contingent upon your relationship with him and that you remain in that place of relationship with him. That you continue to follow his ways. He still promises provision and protection and peace and joy when we serve him and walk in his ways. When we choose him over this world. Because saved people seek God. They want to know what God wants. They want to know what his will is. And they follow that. And when they do it, they walk in the blessing of the Lord. But in this scripture here, he's telling them, right? When you get into the promised land, if you obey me, I'm going to bless you. But he has to let them know. If you turn away, then you are going to be subjected to the sin of the world that is all around you. If you decide to turn away, then you are walking out from under my hand of provision and protection in your life. And the next 50 verses after we just read of all the blessings that he will give to them, there's 50 verses of this is what's going to happen to you if you don't obey me. You're going to end up walking under a curse. And it's not because I'm putting a curse on you. You're putting a curse on yourself by walking away from the one true God and letting yourself be ravaged by the sin of the world that is all around you. So he says, you do that, there'll be nothing special about you. Your enemies will ravage you. Whatever you work for is going to be stolen. You'll struggle to even have peace of mind. You'll find yourself sick often. Your businesses will fail or only be marginally viable. You'll be in tremendous debt. And God is giving them a choice. And the choice he's giving them is obey or disobey. Do it my way or do it your way. He's saying get on my side or don't. It's your choice. If you want to be in relationship with him and experience his blessing and protection, that's one choice that you can make. Or you can choose not to and be subject to whatever the evil, sinful world will do to you. He's saying you're not strong without me. You're not healthy without me. You aren't successful without me. You're not blessed without me. Remember this was a people that were enslaved for 400 years. They come out of slavery. They go into the wilderness. They're not a trained army. They're not going to be able to defeat the nations that are afraid of them and that want to try to take them out. They need God for that. They're not people that have been building businesses for generation after generation and can be able to walk in family money and have prosperity and continue the family business. No, they were enslaved and now they're wandering around the wilderness. You can't start a business when you're wandering in the wilderness. You hear what I'm saying? They were not as strong people yet. Their strength came from God alone. And he's saying this is your choice. Do it my way with me. I'll bless you. I'll be your provision and your protection. If you don't, well, that's on you. And there's a reason that God had to be so explicitly clear here with them. Because the Israelites were not getting it. They weren't after all that God did among them, showing them His power, feeding them miraculously, dwelling among them physically. They still struggled to get it. Now, listen, sometimes people can just be stupid. God continually called the Israelite people a stiff necked people. That's just Bible speak for stupid, stubborn, unwilling to learn. But you know what? In 2022, people can still be that way. We have this Bible. We have the word of God that has been given to us, that has been taught to us. We've experienced, we have experienced God's presence in greater ways than the Israelites ever did. We have seen God transform lives. We've seen God defeat our addictions and do miracles of healing and provision in our midst. But the nature of humanity is that as soon as we see something shiny and glittery, we chase after it. Oh, more money and we begin to live in greed. We begin to withhold from God. We begin to do things and serve money rather than God. Oh, I see a prettier girl. And so we begin to operate in lust and adultery, in sexual sin rather than doing it God's way and remain holy. We go back to the addictions that God delivered us from. We forget about Him and we begin to serve everything but Him, spending all of our time, all of our effort, all of our energy on things that God has never told you to do, that is not a part of His will for your life, just serving everything but Him. Our flesh, our desires, money, success, without any concern for Him. That's the state of humanity, much of humanity. And then, as we amass our fortunes, but our family falls apart, we wonder why. As we indulge our addictions and our relationships and our health declines, and we scratch our head and we wonder why we don't have the blessing of God. As we act selfishly and only look out for number one, and we hurt people and we lose friends, and then we wonder why we don't have the blessing of God in our lives. Listen, this is a tale as old as time. Somebody's singing that in your head. Since the Israelites in the wilderness, with all of God's truth, with all of His goodness, and miracles and power right in front of them, people still will choose to go their own way, and then scratch their head and wonder why it doesn't work out. If I didn't have bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. Right? God just must not love me. God must hate me. God just must not love me. God must hate me. It's simple, guys. It's a choice. It's either God or it's not God. Because God's an all or nothing God. He's an all or nothing God. This is what He asked of the Israelites then. It's what He's asking of us today. It's a choice. Will you pursue Him or will you not pursue Him? He's never left room for us to add what we want or subtract what we don't want. We either believe in what Jesus did on the cross as our way of righteousness, or we try to do it ourselves. Right? We either obey the leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives, or we live according to how we want to live. There's no in-between. It's either Him or not Him. It can't be both. And many people try to do that. We try to live with one foot in the world, one foot in the kingdom of God, and wonder why it doesn't work out. And I think this is where oftentimes we miss it. You see, the Israelites were given a choice. Obey and walk in these blessings, or don't obey and let the sin and evil of the world ravage you. Now, listen, they were still God's people. Right? When they were messing up and they were serving other gods and they were adding and subtracting from what God gave, they were still God's people. That doesn't change. But the blessing that was promised became impossible for them to receive. And that's what happens to us today. You realize this Word promises you peace, unspeakable joy, power. It offers you and promises you a vibrant relationship with God through His Holy Spirit. We're promised wisdom. We're promised health. We are promised provision and the abiding presence of God through this Word. Those are God's promises. And then we become frustrated when we don't have peace or joy or we can't hear God or we have no idea what to do, etc., etc., because we're living for ourselves and we're not living for Him. But listen to me very clearly when I say this. We cannot expect the supernatural in our lives if we are not choosing God. We just can't. And He said it to the Israelites, right at the very end of that passage that we read. He said, choose me daily. Those were His words. It's Deuteronomy 28, verse 14. He says, if you choose me daily. I will bless you and I'll bless everything you do. That's what He's asking them. That's what He is asking for us today. But we cannot have the supernatural if we're not choosing God, if we aren't deciding to embrace everything He promised us by staying close to Him and not chasing after every little distraction and every little shiny thing. Yes, if your faith is in Him for righteousness, you are still God's chosen one. You are still His daughter. You are still His son. But you have short-circuited all of the blessings that He has for you and allowing curses into your life by not living according to His word. Do you hear what I said? You're still God's son. You're still God's daughter because you've put your faith in Him and have trusted Him for your salvation, knowing that it's His righteousness and not yours. But if you don't walk according to this word and you don't walk according to the leading of the Holy Spirit in your life, you are short-circuiting the promises and the blessings of God that He wants to pour out abundantly in your life. This is a lesson that the Israelites had to be continually taught and they continually failed. Half of this book is Israel choosing to worship other gods and chase after everything but the one true God and because of it, paying the price. I'm telling you, when you read the Old Testament, you'll see it's this continual cycle of Israel worshiping other gods, falling under a curse because they're outside of God's protection and then them crying out to God and God, once again, rescuing them. So why is that all recorded in here? Why did God spend so much time making sure that we can read the story of the Israelites? Because God has given us the formula for a blessed life. It's Him daily. That's the formula. Now, don't confuse a blessed life with a prosperity doctrine. That's not what I'm preaching here to you today. No one is promising you enormous wealth and a trouble-free life. Anyone that's been in Christ for any amount of time knows that's not the reality for most people. We experience hardship, but with Christ, He shows us how to deal with it and walks us through it, right? But what you are promised is that no matter what you face, God is with you, that He's guiding your steps and that His purposes are still being fulfilled in your life. And that will bring more joy, more health and more life than any amount of money or success or reputation could ever give you. But God always gives us a choice. He doesn't force any of this on you. So let's look. So they're at the end here. They're at the end of their wandering. Moses is about to die. He's addressing the people once again, giving them the words of the Lord. And this is one of the last portions of scripture that Moses was able to was able to speak. And this is what he says in Deuteronomy 30, verse 11. Now, what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It's not up in heaven so that you have to ask who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it. Nor is it beyond the sea that you have to ask who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it. No, the word is very near to you. It's in your mouth and it's in your heart so that you may obey it. Thank you for listening to Elevate. We hope this message encouraged, inspired and challenged you. Authentic Life Church is located at 3750 Michael Boulevard in Mobile, Alabama. Visit our website, AuthenticLife.tv for more information about Authentic Life Church to find out what we have going on or to make a donation. You can also find us on Facebook. We'd love for you to join us on Sundays at 10 a.m. for our weekend service. We have excellent children's, nursery and youth programs, so bring the family. Thanks again for listening and God bless you.