The First Sunday in Lent
February 14, 2016
Deuteronomy 26:5-10
Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy Nation
“Then you shall declare before the LORD your God: ‘My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous. But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, putting us to hard labor. Then we cried out to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression. So the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey; and now I bring the firstfruits of the soil that you, O LORD, have given me.’ Place the basket before the LORD your God and bow down before him.” (NIV1984)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
“Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!” I don’t know about you, but I love singing that hymn? Do you know why? I love singing that hymn because it reminds me of the songs that the angels and the saints sing before the throne of our holy God in heaven above! (See Isaiah 6:1-4; Revelation 4:6-11) But did you perhaps wonder why we sang that particular hymn on this particular Sunday? Hymn 15 is found in the “Invocation” section of the ELH. That very same hymn is found in the “Holy Trinity” section of Christian Worship (#195). Today is the first Sunday in Lent. What’s up with that? The reason we sang that hymn today, my friends, is because on each of the six Sundays in Lent our sermon theme is going to begin with the words: Holy! Holy! Holy! The fact that we worship and adore a holy God— the Triune God of heaven and earth— has a powerful impact on who we are as the adopted children of God. Therefore, our goal for each of the Sundays in Lent is to stand in the presence of our holy God and study one aspect of how His holiness affects us.
Today we will see how our holy God makes us members of His Holy Nation. There are three points we want to examine this morning. First, we need to see that we are members of God’s holy nation purely by the grace of God. Second, we want to remember that even though we are members of God’s holy nation we may still be called upon to endure misery, toil and oppression in this world. And finally, we want to see how as members of God’s holy nation we joyfully respond to God’s grace.
Our text for this morning takes us back in time to just before God’s people entered into the Promised Land of Canaan. The 40 years of wandering in the wilderness are over. Moses, who because of his own disobedience was not allowed to cross the Jordan into the Promised Land, was “reviewing” the covenant which the LORD had established with the Israelites. Trusting in the Lord’s promise to give this land to the descendants of Abraham, Moses instructs the people on what they were to do and how they were to respond once they had crossed the Jordan and taken possession of the land God had promised to their ancestors.
The very first thing Moses encourages God’s people to remember is the amazing grace of the Lord their God. Moses says to God’s people, “Then you shall declare before the LORD your God: ‘My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous.’”
“My father was a wandering Aramean.” It’s astounding how much history is contained in those simple words? You may recall that the Israelites were descended from a man named Israel— whose original name was Jacob. Jacob had deceived his father Isaac into giving him the right of the firstborn— a right which should have been given to Jacob’s older brother Esau. Esau was so angry with his brother Jacob that Jacob had to flee for his life. He fled to Aram where for 20 years Jacob worked for his father-in-law Laban. Many years later Jacob’s son Joseph was sold into slavery and brought to Egypt. God then saw to it that Joseph ended up being second in command of that powerful country. Soon thereafter, Joseph brought his father and his father’s family down to Egypt. Do you remember how many people that included? It included 70 people. (See Exodus 1:5) When the LORD God led the Children of Israel out of Egypt how many people were there? A census taken at the time of the Exodus revealed that there were 603,550 men over the age of 20. When you add in the Levites, the women and the children there were over two million people waiting to cross the Jordan and take possession of the Promised Land!
How did the Israelites become such a “great and powerful nation”? Even more importantly how did the descendants of Jacob, that “wandering Aramean,” become a holy nation— a nation that is describe as God’s “treasured possession”? That question is answered for us in Deuteronomy 7:6-8. There we read, “The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” The only reason the descendants of Jacob were a “great and powerful nation,” the only reason the descendants of Jacob were a holy nation and a “treasured possession” was because of the amazing grace of a holy God! (See also Exodus 19:6)
The way in which the descendants of Jacob became a holy nation very nicely reminds us of how we became a part of God’s holy nation too, doesn’t it. Do you deserve to be a part of God’s holy nation? No? Why? Surely I deserve to be a part of God’s holy nation, right? No? Why? By nature none of us deserve to be part of God’s holy nation because by nature we are all born sinful! Therefore, the only reason we are a part of God’s holy nation is because of God’s amazing grace! The apostle Paul reminds us of this when he writes, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith— and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). The apostle Peter reminds us of this very same truth when he writes, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (I Peter 2:9-10). (See also I Peter 1:15 & 18; Ephesians 1:4-6)
Does it automatically follow then that as a holy nation, as a treasured possession of a holy God, that you and I will never or should never have to endure misery, toil and oppression in this life? Hardly. In our text for this morning Moses reminded God’s people, “The Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, putting us to hard labor. Then we cried out to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression. So the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”
It is highly unlikely that you and I will ever be forced to experience the level of “misery, toil and oppression” that God’s people endured as slaves in the land of Egypt. But if I were to tell you that the word translated here in our text as “oppression” very literally means, “being squeezed,” and if I were to tell you that the word translated here in our text as “toil” relates to “unpleasant factors of work”— would you now be able to take what Moses said to God’s people some 3,500 years ago and apply it to your life as a member of God’s holy nation today? I think so!
As someone who has been saved purely by the grace of our holy God, as someone who has been made holy purely by the power of God Himself when you stand up for the Truth of Scripture and when you stand up against the sin that is so often being force-fed today— whether it be in our schools, on our televisions, by our courts or even by segments of our own government— you can easily begin to feel as though you are “being squeezed” on all sides. As you strive to think and to speak and to act the same way at work on Monday morning as you do here in church on Sunday morning you could easily begin to see and to hear and to experience the “unpleasant factors” of your daily toil. Living as a member of God’s holy nation amidst a world, a nation, a society that continues to sink ever deeper into the cesspool of sin will indeed cause us to experience “misery, toil and oppression” in this life.
That’s why we can never lose sight of the fact that just as the Lord brought His Old Testament holy nation out of Egypt with “a mighty hand and an outstretched arm,” and just as God brought His Old Testament “treasured possession” into the Promised Land, a land “flowing with milk and honey,” so also one day our God will deliver us from the “misery, toil and oppression” of this world and graciously usher us into the heavenly Promised Land where the streets are made of gold and the gates are made of pearl, a land where there is no more death or pain or mourning or hunger or thirst but only joy and laughter and perfection for all of eternity!
The final point that Moses emphasizes here in our text focuses on our visible response to the grace of our holy God— the grace that has made us a member of His holy nation, the grace that has promised us a glorious eternity in heaven. Moses says to us in the closing verse of our text, “Now I bring the firstfruits of the soil that you, O LORD, have given me. Place the basket before the LORD your God and bow down before him.”
Each and every week we have an opportunity to openly and visibly respond to God’s amazing grace. Each and every week we have an opportunity to bow before the God of heaven and place our offering on His altar. Does your offering accurately reflect your love and your thankfulness for all that the good Lord has done for you? Do you humbly give back to your Savior God an honorable portion of the material blessings that He has placed under your care? Can you honestly say that you come before the Lord with your firstfruits and not your leftovers? The holy season of Lent— that special time of the year when the cross of Jesus Christ is so clearly paced before us— is a very good time for us to prayerfully evaluate the offerings that we are placing on the altar of our holy God.
And let’s not forget that our offerings to the Lord go far beyond what we place into the offering plate on Sunday mornings. Our offerings to our holy God also include the way that we use our time and our talent to serve our Lord by serving here in His Kingdom. Our offerings to our holy God also include making the time to gather together for worship, gathering together to study His holy Word both here at church and at home and sharing our precious Savior with others. All of this is included in the offerings that we humbly bring to our holy God.
Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord God Almighty! Like the angels of heaven we cannot help but lift up our hearts in songs of praise to the Living God of perfect holiness. My hope and my prayer is that for at least the next week you will be especially focused on the truth that purely by His grace the holy Lord God has made you a part of His holy nation of believers. Let that glorious truth keep you focused on the Promised Land of heaven as you journey though this world with all of its “misery, toil and oppression.” Let that glorious reality motivate you as you faithfully respond to God’s grace with the offerings that you place before Him on His altar and with the way that you use your time and your talent in service to Him.
To God be the glory!
Amen