Readings: Deuteronomy 7:6-9 | Romans 8:28-39 | Matthew 13:44-52
Text: Deuteronomy 7:6-9
When it’s discovered that two people are different, people as young as small children notice and begin asking, “How are they different?” “Why are they different?” “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” “If it’s a good thing, then can I join in?” Strangely, if the answer to this last question is ‘a bad thing,’ the whole questioning turns about face and potential jealousy turns into relief. No sibling ever indignantly asked to receive the same punishment as the accused.
So, let’s apply that to God’s people in the Old Testament lesson. The children of Israel clearly were a special people, whom God showed great favor toward. He had materially and numerically blessed them before they left Egypt. He rescued them with 10 powerful judgments against the premiere military in the world. They were now in their second generation since the Exodus, and they were close to entering the land God was delivering to them.
First, what is the good thing that they have, as opposed to others? They have a personal God who acts to save them according to His promise. They have overcome mighty nations, as a ragtag band of laborers and shepherds—Egypt, and the powerful Amorite kings, Og and Bashan. They have a divinely-backed future and know the God who made heaven and earth and who puts idols to shame.
But if their God is different, then what made a deity choose such a scrappy extended family to represent Him? That leaves an unsatisfying answer to natural reason. He chose what is weakest and most ignorable—a race enslaved in Egypt for the last 400 years.
But we must still press on and ask how they are different? There is nothing apparent to the eye that sets them apart. Perhaps their behavior set them apart to their God. They must have discovered the right formula, a true path to heaven! (This is, sadly, what the Pharisees and Rabbis believed, see Matthew 23)
So, how are they different? Not any external factors—numbers, strength, height, any kind of prowess. They were mostly an ethnic group, but they also intermarried with Egyptians and Midians, as even Joseph and Moses had. They were strangers, so it wasn’t that they held a right to citizenship.
Then, let’s hear from their God the answers to these questions:
6“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
“Chosen and holy and treasured”—what wondrous words that God speaks over His people. Children in a family begin fighting if there’s even the faintest trace of being chosen before another, closer to God, loved more than another. How incredible it is that God would regard His people like this!
7It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
It wasn’t because they had some special trait in them—whether developed or innate. It was all God’s choice. He made a promise beforehand that He would bless, that He would deliver. He did, and He too would bless and protect them.
9Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, 10and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face.
To such as are chosen by Him, He gives them to truly know Him. He is faithful, shows steadfast love to those who love and keep His Word. He doesn’t give us the secret to His favor. He rests His favor upon us, and we are made alive.
So, who does God make such tremendous promises to? How do we get in on these promises? Again, it is not what we know, or what we have gained, or something innate about us. The prologue of John’s gospel, chapter 1 explains:
“11He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:11–13)
If you believe these words and promises of God, that means the Holy Spirit is doing His work of calling you out of sin and unbelief and into the inheritance of God’s holy ones. Take hold of these promises because God makes them your own. What is it that can guarantee such eternal riches? Instead of something in you, look to what God has done:
“31What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:31–32)
According to His promises, which predate Israel, He said that in Abraham’s promised offspring, all the families of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:1-3).
Jesus was given up to the just punishment for your sin (for the whole world’s sin), to bear the death which you deserve, to silence the devil’s accusations, to liberate you from his lies, and to guarantee your own resurrection from the dead! So, drink in these rich words of God’s favor because you are in Christ:
“33Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:33–39)
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
Leave a Reply