Understanding Our Role in God's Plan

I ask you to turn to Deuteronomy chapter 32. This is Moses' song God has asked him to write. The song is based on the idea that the people of Israel are entering the promised land, and God already knows what they're going to do. And he's asked Moses to write this song so that they would learn to sing this song, and they were to sing it at the festivals that they attended. And it was to remind them that before they ever went into the land of promise, God already knew their nature and character was such that they would refuse to be rebellious. Yes? Chapter 32. And I want to start, I'm going to read from verse 1 on, but I'm going to start at verse 7, discussing what I want to discuss tonight. It's about our place in God's big plan. That's what he's discussing. Our part in God's great plan. He wanted the people of Israel to see where they stood with regard to what God was doing in the world. Not just their part of it, but the bigger picture of what was taking place. He starts off in this beginning to talk about the place of Israel. Verse 1, I'll start with, Listen, O heaven, I will speak. Hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. Let my teaching fall like rain, and my words descend like the dew, like showers on new grass, or abundant rain on tender plants. He starts with what would be a normal charge that you would have if you went to court. The jury is the heavens and the earth. So, listen, heavens, listen, the earth, of my words of charge against my people. Then he begins to talk about what he's done. Then my teachings fall like rain, my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants. I will proclaim the name of the Lord. O praise the greatness of our God. Then he talks about God's role. He is the rock. His works are perfect. And all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong. Upright and just as he. They have acted corruptly toward him. Now he moves to talk about the charges against Israel. Starts talking about the role that God plays, and there's nothing wrong with him. But they have acted corruptly toward him. To their shame, they're no longer his children, but a warped and crooked generation. Is this the way you repay? He's talking about God. Is this the way you repay the Lord, O foolish and unwise people? Is he not your father, your creator, who made you and formed you? So he brings the charge to say, even though God has made you and formed you, and he's the creator of everything that there is. You have turned against him. Beginning with verse 7, now he addresses the people of Israel. Remember, they're to sing this at the festival times, to remind themselves of who God is and what's happened to them. So that at the big festivals, they would sing this song. Even though it was a charge against them, as letting them see how God saw the circumstances of their life. Remember the days of old. Consider the generations long past. Ask your father, and he will tell you. Your elders, and they will explain to you. What he's talking about is, earlier in the book of Deuteronomy, he had described to them exactly what they were supposed to do. The parents were to be able to teach their children what God's truth was. He was to make sure that they understood the things of the kingdom of God. It was the responsibility of the elders and the parents to teach the children what God had done. What God was like, and who he was. The preparation for living a life comes when children begin to learn from the earliest days what it's like to follow God. Have any of you ever been, learned a foreign language? You learned a foreign language? What kind of language did you learn? Portuguese to Brazil? And when you got there, did you have an accent? Whenever you grow up in a language, you learn it so completely that you speak like the people that are there. When you start learning it as an adult, it makes a big difference. And you can learn to speak Spanish, and you might do pretty well until you come to someone who grew up in Mexico, and learned it from the day they were just a baby. You can learn some things about God as you get to be an adult. But if you learn those same things as you're a child growing up, whenever you get to be an adult, you already have a lot of answers for the questions that come to you. That's why it's so critical for children to learn from the earliest days of their lives. We want the children in the preschool area from the day they're coming to church born. We want them to be around people who pick them up and hold them and say, God loves you, so that even though they don't know the meaning of those words yet as babies, they're hearing those words. They don't know what mommy and daddy means, but they're hearing those words when they're growing up at home, and they know when it finally comes to they know what it means, they're deeply embedded in them. We want them whenever their diapers are being changed to hear somebody say, God loves you, and he wants you to be comfortable. We want them to hear those words. As they grow step by step, the more they experience this language in their childhood, the more they know the truth of God. When a child starts that age and you tell him that God loves him and cares for him, by the time he gets in the fourth or fifth grade, he just believes that. You let a child grow up and they don't know these things, by the time they get to the fourth or fifth grade, they are making choices as to whether or not they believe God. When they get in high school and they've never had this background, they're thinking, well, maybe I should be an atheist. But if you grow up believing from the earliest days of your life in the reality of God, you don't ask those questions. What the Bible tells us is the foundation stone for the people of God starts at the very beginning. So he said to the parents, it is your responsibility to begin to teach exactly what I'm like to the children, so that they will know what I'm like and be able to answer the questions that you have. So he says to them, remember the days of old, consider the generations long past. Here's how you're going to learn. Ask your father. There's another side to this, you know. God doesn't set the church up to fill in for your failure as a parent to learn enough about God to explain it to your children. That's your job. It's a sad thing, you know, but a lot of times people come to me and say, my kids are starting to ask questions about God. Would you come and explain it to them? Well, I can do that, and I can also come to your house and tell them to behave themselves. But both of those are your jobs as parents. And what we're trying to do is not just to teach the children who are here, but we want the parents to be able to learn the truths of God, so that they see that that's not something done only at the church, but it's at our house too. Mom and dad are talking about these things. They're discussing the spiritual realities I hear of them discuss at church. If children don't hear that, they think religion's at the church, and not in our house. We don't want them to think there's a difference. There's a division between that. And from the earliest days in Moses' discussion with the families, he's telling them, this is your responsibility. It's your responsibility to make sure that the parents understand what they're supposed to do. So in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 20, he said, In the future, when your son asks you, what is the meaning of these stipulations, decrees, and laws, the Lord our God has commanded, you tell him, we were slaves in Pharaoh's Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. They were to tell the story of salvation. Now, I think sometimes, you know, we make it seem like this is mysterious. You know, if you've given your life to Christ and He's guided you, you know that. And what your job is, is to tell the people around you that that's the truth. And what we want parents to be equipped to do is be able to say, this is what God has done in my life for their children. So Moses, whenever he tells the song, he says, not to the priest and the Levites. Explain all this to the kids when they come to ask you. He says to the parents listening and singing this song, that it is their responsibility to explain what God has done in the world. And then he talks about this, what he wants them to tell. When the Most High, verse 8, when the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the people according to the number of the sons of Israel. He uses a phrase here, the Most High. This phrase is unusual in the Bible. It's generally a term that's used in pagan literature for people to describe their view of God. So that pagan leaders or pagan people might say, we have several gods in our nation, but there is one God Most High, the one in charge of all this. They didn't necessarily have a name for him, all the nations, but they just called him the God Most High. So that's the word God, E-L in Hebrew, and the word E-L-Y-O-N, or E-L-Y-O-N, God Most High. There's a way of saying there is someone, even though we have gods in our nation's history, there is one in charge of everything. Now the Bible uses this term very sparingly. It's used of Melchizedek, who was said to be a priest of the Most High God. He was not a Hebrew, but for some reason he was a servant of the God in charge of everything in the universe, God Most High. It's used of Balaam in the Old Testament. He said, it is said of him, he was a prophet of the Most High, the God Most High. He wasn't a Hebrew, and he wasn't a part of the children of Israel, but he was a prophet of the God Most High. Now, in this passage, Moses uses this same sort of language to describe God. Now, he's not unusual in this, because sometimes in the Old Testament, in several places, it is the name of God is given, the name Yahweh, and he's called Yahweh, God Most High. So the Old Testament was used to naming God as the one in charge of all other people who claim the role of God. So here, Moses is going back to the beginning of history and saying, from the very beginning, God was ultimately in charge of everything. He created all that there is. The idea of creation in the Bible is a very critical part of the picture of who God is. There were not others involved with him. He alone is the one who is Most High. The Bible is not trying to suggest that there are other gods. They just use this language that the pagans use. We have a lot of gods, but there's one above all of our gods. And so they borrow this language to say, you're right, and it's Yahweh, God. He is the one above every other person in the world or every other creature calls himself a god. So Moses is saying, when the God Most High, who created everything in the world, gave the nations their inheritance. Now, what he means by this is that God had control of everything. And when he looked at the Babylonians, he had plans for them. When he looked at the Egyptians, he had plans for them. And he gave them their territory or their land, their inheritance. What the Bible asserts is that the world that God made, he ultimately was in charge of all of it. And he gave people the portion of his creation that he wanted them to have. And here he is asserting a powerful thing, that all of the world is under God's authority. If there are people in China, God placed them there, and he gave them that part of the world for their own to live on. There are people in India, God gave them that country and the place there to live, and he has plans for them. We sometimes think of God having plans for believers, and sort of leave it off at that. But what Moses is asserting is that when God created the world, he created everything, and he had plans for every person and every part of the world. His picture is not just focused on the followers of him, but everyone. His picture shows God in a bigger light than you might see when you look at his choice of Israel in the Old Testament. When the Most High gave nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind and set up boundaries for the people according to the number of the sons of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance. He doesn't miss the discussion of saying there is a part that God has that's special to him. His chosen people, the election of Israel to be his followers, is a big part of the story of creation. But it's not the whole point of creation. God has allotted, in all these things that take place, very powerful definitions of who people are, where they stand with him. If you look back in chapter 2 of the book of Deuteronomy, you'll see when he's talking about the people in the world, chapter 2, reading verse 5, here he's making reference to how the people of Israel were to travel to the land of promise. And in this story, he's telling them certain limits that they have. Verse 5 he says, do not provoke, he's talking about the descendants of Esau. Let me move back up in verse 4. Give the people these orders, you are about to pass through the territory of your brothers, the descendants of Esau who lived in Seir. They will be afraid of you, but be careful. Do not provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land, not even enough to put your foot on. I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as his own. You are to pay them silver for the food you eat and water you drink. He is saying, I have a contract or covenant with Esau. We don't know the nature of that contract. We know what he had with Israel given at Mount Sinai. We know that. But he's saying, I have an arrangement with Esau and he's accountable to me and his territory is accountable to me and I've given it to him and you're not to take it. Let me skip down to verse 9. Then the Lord said to me, chapter 2 again, do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war, for I will not give you any part of their land. I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession. Just as he gave Canaan to the people of Israel, so he had given the Moabites land. It shows that God had something doing with the Moabites, but he didn't let us in on it. I'm just telling you, don't mess with them. I have my own arrangement with them. God has his finger on every nation in the world, whether they know it or not. Now, if you skip down again to verse 19 in the same chapter, he says, when you come to the Ammonites, do not harass them or provoke them to war, for I will not give you a possession of any land belonging to the Ammonites. I have given it to as a possession to the descendants of Lot. Just as he gave the land of promise to them, so he had given this land to the descendants of Lot. Now, in chapter 18 of the book of Leviticus, there's a very interesting thing that God says to his people. Chapter 18, beginning at verse 24, he's saying to the people of Israel, do not defile yourselves in any way, any of these ways. He's given them the law, and he said, do not defile yourself in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I'm going to drive out before you became defiled. He's talking about now Canaan. He's saying that the people who live in Canaan that are going to be driven out have defiled the land. Do not defile yourself in any of these ways. He's talking about the moral codes he's given before, because this is how the nations I'm going to drive out before you became defiled. The implication here is saying the people I've given this land to have defiled it, and now I'm going to drive them out and you get it. Then he says, even the land was defiled, so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things. For all these things were done by the people who live in the land before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you. And that is exactly what happened to Israel. They strayed away from God, became like their pagan neighbors that lived among them, and God drove them off to captivity to Babylon. And he said to them, if you do the same things that the people who were before you did, I will throw you out of this land too, because you've defiled it. What God is telling us is that every people in this world have an accountability to him. We do. Everybody else in the world. And they're accountable in the way that God has dealt with them. Now we know what he said to us, and we know what he said to the people of Israel, but we don't always know the things that he did with all the other nations in the world. Don't think for a minute that all the people in China, God has never paid attention to them. He has watched them. He's dealing with their nation step by step. It's true that the followers of Christ are his special called people, but every nation in the world is accountable to God. This is the basic premise with which he's approaching the people of Israel. Now, ask the elders to tell you what happened in the beginning, how God created the world. Ask him to tell about how the nations were each set in their own place, and how he divided all mankind and set up the boundaries according to what Israel was doing. Israel was the key element in his whole plan. So he's made sure that that takes its key place. Verse 9, for the Lord's portion, when he uses the term Lord here, when it's found in the Bible, the capitalized L-O-R-D, it's always a substitute for what in the Hebrew language is the personal name for God, Yahweh. So he's calling Yahweh here the personal name for God. For Yahweh's portion is his people. There's a special place for the people of God in God's great plan. That's what he's telling us. If you come to know Christ and he lives in your life and he's controlling you, you have become something special to God, and he has a special plan for your life. Is he interested in all the world? Yes. Does he have plans for them? Yes. But there's a special thing that God has for those who he can call his children by their second birth. All are children of God by creation. But those who've come to know him in this personal relationship in our part of the story of the Scriptures are special to God. They are people through whom he intends to bless the entire world. You see, the Jews had a difficulty because whenever they heard that they were special, they thought it meant we're really something, and the end result is I'm going to be special. From the very beginning, even with the covenant of Abraham, he said to Abraham, I'll make your descendants as the sands on the seashore, and through you all of the world will be blessed. This is a key ingredient. When you decide to become a follower of Christ, it is not for your personal benefit that this is done. God intends by your life that everyone around you would be blessed. They will be blessed in a couple of ways. One, they will see your life and see the benefit that following God and Christ gives to you. Everyone who follows Christ has all the same problems that everybody else has around them. But what comes to us is the wisdom of God to know how to face them and deal with them. That's what makes the difference. And when you do that, and when you make the choices as God has told you to make these choices, and people see your life begin to work in a way that's different than theirs, it should draw them to say, that's what I want to find for myself. This is our witness to the world that God is alive and living because he transforms us. We're no longer shaped by our culture, but we're transformed by the power of the Spirit at work in our lives to change our desires, our goals, our passions, our character. All of those things are beginning to be transformed when the Spirit comes into our lives. So he's saying even to the people of Israel in the Old Testament, you are special people of God. And we fall in that line of the people who have been called to God, not because of our genetic nature, and of course that wasn't true for the Israelites. Every person who was a Hebrew, Israelite, was not necessarily a follower of God. For there were those people who were faithful in Israel, and there were those people who were not faithful. And we find as the Old Testament develops that this remnant that the Bible describes as those people who have the faith of Abraham are those who carry the message of God through the ages. And whenever we come to the New Testament then, we see that it's not simply keeping the law, but it is having the presence of Christ inside of us that sets us apart. So God's plan for his people from the very beginning has not changed to now. He's still saying, trust me, live as I direct you, and you will find life in all of its fullness. And when you do, the people around you will begin to see that you are the Lord's portion. You are his allotted inheritance. He begins in this part of the scriptures to discuss the direction in which this shows itself. He points back to how God found them. In the desert, he found him. In a barren and howling waste, he found him. He shielded him and cared for him. He guarded him as the apple of his eye. And he talks about in the desert land, he found him in a barren and howling waste. The Bible says in the beginning, the world was out, there was just void and there was nothing. This word barren is the very same word that's used in Genesis to describe the world before creation began. These people who are following God were like the world, uncreated, unformed, without anything. And then God came and he found these people in their desperate circumstances. And if you've come to know Christ, you know what it's like to be in this barren and desolate place. When you look around you and you see people whose lives are torn apart and upside down and empty and we could say barren, sometimes we get discouraged and depressed about that. But it is only the first step in preparation for Christ finding a person when they're in that state. For what he's looking for are people who are ready to find a different kind of life. I want you to know what it's like to live more than an unformed life, empty, void, nothing there. God searched for you, he's saying to the people of Israel, and he found you in Egypt when you were not a nation, you were a bunch of slaves. You had no structure, you had no future, you had nothing to look forward to, and he found you. Many of you have stories to talk about the fact that you were in that life that was broken and damaged and it seemed hopeless, but somehow or other, God found you. He put someone in your life that pointed their finger to God. He put someone in your life that said, there is something more than this, and for some strange reason, you said, I believe that. I want to find out what it is. And then, when he came into your life, the changes began in a powerful way. He's just describing historically what happened to Israel, but it happens to everyone who comes to find Christ. In a deserted land, he found him. He was barren and unformed, in howling waste, but then he came to these people and he shielded him. What happens whenever Christ comes into your life? He stands between you and the rest of the world that might destroy you. So, it's not you against the world, it's now God against the world. He's your shield. He stands between you and destruction, not between you and difficulty, or not between you and trial. You get those, but you don't get destroyed. He shielded him and he cared for him. What Christ does when he comes into your life is begin to nurture you. He gives you information so you'll know what to do. He gives you strength so you'll be able to do it. He gives you passion so you won't give up. All of those things are the things God gives people, just like he did the people of Israel. He shielded him and cared for him, and guarded him as the apple of his eye. I've heard that term used a lot, and there's different things that people think it means. There's a pupil in your eye, you know the center part of your eye that's a pupil. The Hebrew word here for apple of your eye means a little person. Some people think that it means when you look at somebody's eye, you can see your own reflection in their eye. I don't know if that's what it is, but the word pupil that we use to describe it is Latin for the doll in your eye. It identifies the central part of what you see, that if you lose that you lose your sight. And there he describes that the people of Israel became to God like his eyesight. You know instinctively if something heads towards your eye, your eyelid just closes to protect it. The apple of your eye, the core, the pupil. God provides that eyelid for us with more power than the eyelid. And so he sees as we live our lives and watches the things that are going to hurt us and destroy us and he sticks his hand in front of our face so that it doesn't happen to us. So we don't get blinded, destroyed. Now I want you to understand it doesn't mean you don't face problems, but you don't get destroyed. You are precious to God as your eye is precious to you. So he will guard you like you guard your own eyes. Now get the perspective, all of the people in the world are of great concern to God. But those who become his followers have a special place in his life. To them he is guiding them. To them he is providing for them. To them he is shielding them. He is caring for them. They are the part of his world that he protects because they have said, we trust you and we give our lives to live for you. And because of that covenant promise you make to God, he accepts responsibility for your life. He did that with Israel and he does it with his people today. God has indeed a place and a plan for you. In the beginning he wants to find you when you are in trouble. He wants to give you some idea about what can happen to you if you will trust him. Then when you trust him, he guards you, he provides for you, he protects you, he defends you and he makes sure that what is planned for you will really be accomplished. God has a plan for the world, but for you who have decided to follow Christ, his plan now begins to work. The plan he has for the whole world begins to work in you. Would you bow your heads for a moment to pray? It doesn't make any difference who you are. God has a plan for your life. The only thing that matters is whether or not you believe that and are prepared to do what it takes to allow God to put his plan in operation in your life. Now you can do whatever you want to do. God still has judgment over your life, but the plan he has for you can't work until you trust him. Now if you have trusted God with your life, he has a purpose for you. There are two things. He wants you to do his work, and he has some work for you to do, and he wants you to grow to be like him. These are two critical things in your life. It allows you to both participate with God in what he's doing in the world, and to be a witness as to the character and nature of God, which allows him to bless the people around you, fulfill his promise he made to Abraham. So you must be passionate to fulfill what you think God wants you to do, and if you don't know what it is, you need to be asking him that constantly. What is it that I have to do in your world and in your kingdom? And you have to be passionate about saying to God, what are the things in my life that keep me from being useful to you? And then ask him to eliminate those, give you power to overcome them, give you wisdom to turn aside from those things that destroy you, and you're a witness. It's what he had to do with Israel, and it's what he's trying to do with you. So all you have to say is, Lord, I believe this. I give my life to you. He will change you from being one person who he has a great plan for, to a person in whom his plan can go to work. So Lord, make us conscious that this is not a story, this is reality, and that you move and work in this world right now in powerful ways, even in this very moment, putting in our minds the ideas that you want to guide us. They're not random thoughts, they're your voice. Help us to see you as the God Most High, and to pledge ourselves to trust you with everything. In the name of Jesus, our Lord, we pray. Amen.