Deuteronomy 28 and the Sermon on the Mount: or Sermon Work

So I'm laboring to give birth to another sermon this week. Sermon writing for me is a week long process. I don't know if it is because I'm a perfectionist, or because my attention span is shrinking exponentially as my age increases, or what. I'm hoping maybe that by writing a little bit down here it will help me to shape what I want to say this Sunday.

We are currently preaching through a series titled: Finding Ourselves in God's Story. My intention here was to give a brief overview of the overarching story told in and through Holy Scripture. We began by looking at the Creation and humanity's rebellion in Genesis 1-3. That sermon was called, appropriately enough: The Story Begins. The main idea was that when we find ourselves in God's story, we find ourselves both broken and mended. Then we had a sermon on Genesis 12 called "God Makes a Deal." The main idea there was that when we find ourselves in God's story, we play A major role but we don't play THE major role. This week's sermon is going to finish us up in the Old Testament so that next week we can look at the Incarnation and the following week finish with the last two chapters of the book of Revelation.

Now this week's sermon is using Deuteronomy 28 as a jumping off point to cover basically the rest of the Old Testament (since in a sense the rest of the OT is a footnote on DT 28). I'm calling it "God's people break the deal" and I think the main idea is going to be that when we find ourselves in God's story, we have to follow God's script. I'm thinking I will try to run with the metaphor of Torah (leaning more on the sense of instruction rather than law), as God's script for His redemptive intention for His people. Without coming across as anti-Semitic, I'm going to illustrate the way the rest of the OT tells the story of God's people repeatedly failing to be redemptive instruments because of their persistant refusal to follow God's script.

I'm trying to be careful about always making a connection to the New Testament with every Old Testament sermon I preach. I'm not so sure that it is a cardinal sin to fail to do so, but it is helpful to show people the way the two parts of their Bible are connected. So this week my first thought was to tie the story of Israel's repeated failures in to the call to repentance, first through the prophetic injunction to shoov from their wicked ways and turn back to God, and then through John the Baptist and Jesus' call to repent. But the more I think about it, the less I like it. I mean, I'm a big fan of repentance and I'm trying to cultivate a lifestyle of repentance, but homiletically, I'm just not feeling the groove.

So now what I think I'm going to do is make the New Testament connection to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. I think what I'm going to do is compare and contrast Moses presenting the two ways to Isreal (obedience leading to blessing or disobedience leading to curses) with Jesus's injunction to enter through the narrow gate which leads to life rather than the broad gate which leads to destruction. In terms of comparrison (and I know there are a plethora of interpretations on this Sermon as well as a wide range of opinions as to how it relates to the Christian life), Moses presented Israel with an Instruction for how to live as God's chosen people whom God intended to use as His redemptive instrument and Jesus basically is calling God's chosen people (who now are no longer determined by ethnicity), back to the heart of God's intention in giving His Instruction through Moses.

But I need to wrestle with the contrast here too because the Incarnation of Christ changed everything forever. So I'm thinking of the way Paul, when talking about God's Instruction, said this Instruction was given to lead people to Christ, almost like the way a babysitter watches over a child (Galatians 3:24). But then Christ Himself points us right back to God's Instruction when He says that He didn't come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it (Mt 5:17) and that our righteousness needs to surpass that of the Scribes and Pharisees (Mt 5:20). I don't think what Christ is talking about here is some kind of Protestant concept of imputed righteousness because in the rest of this Sermon He is calling us to a higher standard of righteousness than mere outward conformity to a set of rules.

I guess the thing that is becoming clear to me as I type all this out is that God's intention to redeem His creation does not change from the Old to the New Testaments. In the Old Testament, God called Abraham and his descendants to be His instrument of this redemption. While ultimately that redemption was going to come through Abraham's Seed (singular), that is to say, Christ, God also gave Instruction to Israel as to how they must live if they were to be His redemptive agents. In the New Testament, Christ comes and fulfills the Old Testament by living a life of complete obedience as the Second Adam and the personification of Israel, and then He extends the Kingdom invitation to all peoples, thus establishing the Church. Now it is the Church, as God's chosen people and filled with His Holy Spirit, that is God's redemptive instrument in the world. But just like Israel was presented with two ways to live in Deuteronomy 28, so too are those who accept the call to follow Christ. Either we live a lifestyle of repentance which manifests itself in good works and by which God brings redemption to the world around us, or we live a hypocritical life of double standards and outward conformity to arbitrary rules which will lead us to our own destruction.

Well that helps. There is so much more I would like to cram in to this though! I want to emphasize the importance of our being created in God's image and called to conform to the image of Christ in every sermon! I also want to explicitly include the Trinity in every sermon! If only we had 3 hours to do church on Sunday......