Don't be Afraid -- Embrace the Promise

"But you wouldn't go up [into the land, Moses said to Israel]. You refused to obey the command of the Lord your God. You spoke against him in your tents. You said, "The Lord hates us. That's why he brought us out of Egypt to hand us over to the Amorites. He wanted to destroy us. Where can we go? The men who checked out the land have made us afraid. They say, 'The people are stronger and taller than we are. The cities are large. They have walls that reach up to the sky. We even saw the Anakites there.'" Then I said to you, "Don't be terrified. Don't be afraid of them. The Lord your God will go ahead of you. He will fight for you. With your own eyes you saw how he fought for you in Egypt. You also saw how the Lord your God brought you through the desert. He carried you everywhere you went, just as a father carries his son. And now you have arrived here" (Deuteronomy 1:26-31). Today, we ponder the second half of the Bible's story. Yesterday, Pastor Anthony reflected on the first half, so if you missed yesterday's, you might want to pause here and do that first. As he said, the first half of the Bible is all about God's gifts to us. The second half explores how we respond to these gifts. And as our text relates, humans tend to be less than thankful for God's gifts. Before we explore that, let's turn to the book of 1 Corinthians in which we read, "Those things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us. That's because we are living at the time when God's work is being completed. So be careful. When you think you are standing firm, you might fall (10:11-12). This is no subtle warning that we really need to pay attention to this story. Of course, we are not Israel. Arguably, the gift God gives us is much greater. Earlier Paul wrote, "Because of what God has done, you belong to Christ Jesus…He makes us right with God. He makes us holy and sets us free (1 Corinthians 1:30). He continues, "We have received the Spirit who is from God. The Spirit helps us understand what God has freely given us" (2:12), and "we have the mind of Christ" (2:16). God's gift to us is Christ Jesus and all his benefits. This gift will keep giving until we have received our inheritance on the new earth. How do we respond to God's gifts? The best thing to do is to receive them with joy and thanksgiving; as Pastor Anthony said, like a child. But somewhere between childhood and adulthood many of us become like the Israelites. We look at the gifts God gives and decide that God can't do it. We are too scarred, too broken, we can't be fixed. We believe the lie that God's primary attitude towards us is hatred. He is repulsed by what we have done, or the things done to us. Try as we might, we can't rid ourselves of sin's stain. So focussed on the bleating of evil around us, we do not hear the words of Jesus, "For those sins I died." We are filled with fear. It might also be that we are too proud to receive them. This sort of refusing pride comes in two ways. On the one hand, we do not think we are sinful enough to need redeeming, all we need is a tweak here and a tweak over there and we are good to go, heaven should be proud to have us. Such pride has never investigated their own heart. Such hearts cannot receive the gift. On the other hand, there is a pride that refuses to receive God's grace. Refuses, not because we are so stained, but because we are rooted in a theology that says, 'we must earn our place'. Among seasoned Christians, I constantly hear versions of this. As much as we talk about grace, we cannot believe it. When we slow down enough to examine are own hearts, we discover we are filled with fear. We have not made enough progress in the Christian life; God must hate me for being a repetitive failure. In the face of such fear, Moses reminds Israel of what God has been doing for her: he has been present with her and going before her; as her divine Warrior and Captain he fought for her defeating her enemies before her very eyes; and he has sustained her through the great and terrifying desert. With sensitive pastoral touch, Moses compared God's care to that of a parent who carries their child through danger to safety. She has experienced God both as fighter and as father, as savior and as provider; a powerful combination of metaphors that echoes through the whole Bible. Echoing Moses' compassion, Paul says that we belong to God, we are set right with him, we are set free and made holy, we have the Spirit of God and the mind of Christ. Like Moses, Paul says, 'Don't be afraid. God can do this.' Move forward in faith, receive the gift, embrace the promise.