You Shall Not Live Long In It, But Will Be Utterly Destroyed

One thing I will say about the New Geneva Conference is I went to New Geneva under a different name. Timothy graduated from New Geneva last year. And so if you have interest in the work of the ministry and how it's done and how men are prepared for it, I would encourage you to come to the Shepherds Conference. It's not just a, it is a conference primarily for pastors and elders and their wives. My petition to you would be that the church is in need in many areas of good and faithful Christians who understand the work of building up God's kingdom and serving him. And so I'd invite you to come to that if you're able. If you have any questions, you can talk to Timothy about it or Eric or me. Also, if you want to help, there's a lot of work that goes on in preparing for the meals and different things that are going on. Paige and Timothy have been doing a ton of behind-the-scenes work.

to that end. So if you're available to help or willing to serve in some way, get in touch with Timothy and Paige and let them know. I know they'd really appreciate that. That said, now we'll come to our sermon. This morning, we're going to be continuing in our study of Deuteronomy chapter 4. Our passage this morning is a warning against falling away from the Lord. As the Israelites are about to take possession of the land to go in to do battle with the Canaanites and then to settle it, Moses warns them. that God would destroy them if they were to turn away from him and worship idols. I think this is a warning that we need today. The goal of this sermon is not to superficially make you doubt your salvation or to wonder if you're really one of God's chosen, but rather to cause you to truly consider what God says here, that he does cast out those who turn away from him, that not all Israel is Israel. And so my hope this morning is that God will help each of us take this warning to heart.

to examine ourselves, and to make sure that we're living as Christians, as God's people ought to live. The danger is that we would say we're one thing, but actually be something else. And so I hope that God will help us to see ourselves clearly and to repent where we need to repent and to live by faith and not by sight. Would you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord from Deuteronomy 4, verses 25 and 26. This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. When you become the father of children and children's children, and have remained long in the land and acted corruptly, and make an idol in the form of anything, and do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, so as to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will surely perish quickly from the land where you are going over the Jordan to possess it. You shall not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.

As I was preparing, I was trying to figure out if I should just preach on these two verses or if I should go through the next section, which goes through verse 31, which is sort of the explanation of what will happen, what that destruction looks like, and what the people's response to that destruction will be. And I decided that we would divide it up and we would do it over two sermons. And so this is sort of half of a sermon, if you will. It's not the whole story. It's part of the story. And the reason I decided to divide it up this way is that I think that the sort of warning that's expressed in this passage is the sort of warning that we're prone to just look over and to ignore and say, oh yeah, but that doesn't apply to me. And so I thought it would be good for us to take some time to consider it carefully. And so the first thing concerning this passage, this warning, is that it's a warning about the future, perhaps the distant future. He says to the Israelites, when you become the father of children and children's children, when you're a grandparent,

And when you've remained long in the land, this is not a sort of danger. He's not warning against a danger that's imminent, one that's going to be here tomorrow, but one that might crop up in a few decades, years to come. Once you've lived long in the land, once you've had kids and grandkids, here's something to be aware of. Many of us live as though our only concerns are the things that are right in front of us, the things that are going on this coming... or maybe this coming month. But if someone were to say, hey, you need to be aware of this thing that is 20 years away, we're not as prone to listen to it. We're not as prone to think that that matters to us. And that's this sort of warning. It's a warning that's out ahead. And yet it's a warning that's given now. It's given to young people. The nation of Israel at this time has lost all of their older men.

Moses, Jacob, and Caleb are the only older men around. Moses is about to pass away, and they're about to go into the land. They're young men by comparison. The men there may be 40 years old. I'm 42. I'm young. These men are all younger than me. And he's saying, when you become a parent, and when you become a grandparent, when you live there for a long time, when you're old, there will be dangers. And he gives this warning to them as young people. Be careful. Be vigilant. The young guard. If we could describe this warning in business terms, we would use the term mission drift or mission creep. They're about to go into the land. What is the mission as they go into the land? It's to take over the land. It's to possess it. It's to dispossess the Canaanites, to kill them all, and to dwell in the land. That's their goal. Worship God and do what he says. The danger is that over time, they will depart from that mission and that they'll start to do other things.

This is what Moses is warning them against. There's a real danger that needs to be contended with. They're supposed to work to hold the line. They're supposed to stay faithful to the Lord. They're supposed to stand firm. One of the things I've noted about our church, both as a blessing and as a prayer request, is that there are very few older people in our church. And what we lack in older people are many things. One of the things we lack, though, is to see someone who's lived life and who's had burdens and hardships and sorrows, and who's remained faithful. Now, we may have that in our families with our parents or our grandparents personally, but here, we don't have very many older people. And we're lacking an encouragement and a strength that would help us. What we want to see, what we see in older people who've stood firm, who've held the line, who've continued in the faith, is what Moses is calling them to do. He says, when you're young, you'll have energy, you'll have strength, you'll have your whole life ahead of you.

What that life holds and what trials you're going to face, we don't know yet. But whatever they are, what we'd like to see is you be faithful through all of those trials. And older Christians give us that example. And they're an encouragement to us and an exhortation to us to follow in their example. So Moses warns them, as you get older, don't forget your mission. Don't forget what you're here for. Don't forget where you got this land and who gave it to you and who you're to serve. Something that we as young people need to be on guard against. Jude exhorted us in this same way. In verse 3, he said, That you as a Christian, early in your life, are going to need to remain faithful.

in your commitments throughout all of it. Maybe an example would help. Typically when people have kids, they don't know what they're doing with their first child, right? And they tend to either let the child run wild because they don't know what to do or they're just like disciplining them for everything. Everything's a disciplinable offense. And as they have more kids, they sort of figure out and they grow and they mature and they become better parents. Not with the oldest kid because the oldest kid is still the oldest kid. He's still the first time we're going through it. But with the other kids, oh, we've learned the difference between childishness and foolishness, rebellion or teething. But then comes the last child. And what is the story about the last child? How do last childs get treated? They get spoiled, don't they? That's what all the other siblings, the older siblings will say things like, I never got away with that when I was your age. What's happened? Why does the baby of the family get away with things?

that the older siblings never would have gotten away with. The parents are more mature. They're more seasoned parents. They've done it before. So why is it that the baby of the family gets spoiled? It's the parents are tired. A lot of it is that. And that the parents are consumed with and distracted with the older kids and their needs and their changes and their weddings and all the stuff they got going on. And the little kids just kind of grow up without the conscientious attention that maybe the older kids received. That's mission drift as a parent. Every one of us has a youngest child if we have children. And we think, okay, well, we need to be careful not to just let them live without any instructions, without any consequences, without any disciplines, without any turbulence in their life. And so this danger of forgetting what we're here for and what we're supposed to do is an ever-present danger. And it's something that we as young people need to be reminded of. How we finish.

It's much more important than how we start. Some of my boys run track, and they run maybe middle distance, 400, 800. They're running races that are not distance races, but they're not sprints. And so when you run a sprint, I suppose there's stages of the sprint. But when you're running a 400 or an 800 or a mile, you don't take off at the whistle as fast as you can, at least not if you're swize. Because if you do, what's going to happen is you're going to fade. You're not going to have the energy to finish. They start out and they run at a certain percentage of their capacity and then they speed up and they speed up and they speed up. There's a strategy to it. And the goal is to win the race, right? And every once in a while you get a new kid who thinks he's fast and he goes, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to take off. And he takes off. If they're running a 400, which is one time around the lap, he's way out in front of everybody. And then about the start of the second curve, he just starts to fade. And all the group catches him and then the group passes him and then he finishes toward the back. What was his problem?

He didn't have a plan. He didn't know that tiredness was coming. He didn't know that there was trouble. He didn't plan to win. He started well, but he didn't finish well. That shouldn't be the case with us as Christians. That shouldn't be our aim. It's easy to start quick out of the gate. It's hard to maintain our faithfulness over the decades of our lives. That's what Moses is warning them about. There are many things he could warn them about, but he's saying, listen, as you get older, as you become accustomed to the land, make sure that you run in such a way that you'll win. Paul exhorts us the same way in 1 Corinthians. He says, do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Meaning only one ran well enough to win the race. Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things.

They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore, I run in such a way as not without aim, and I box in such a way as not beating the air, but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself may not be disqualified. Paul is concerned not just about others finishing well, but himself finishing well. And so we need to be aware, not of just the temptations that we face today or next week, but of the temptations that we'll face in 20 years. Another way of saying it is, you're going to face new temptations as you get older. Ones you don't know anything about yet. And that's what Moses is warning the people against. What specifically does he warn them against? Well, a few different things. First, acting corruptly. He gives the context first. He says, when you become a father of children and children's children and you've remained long in the land. And then he says, and then here's the things that you're going to be tempted by. First, to act corruptly.

Second, to make an idol in the form of anything. And third, to do evil in the sight of the Lord. All of these sins, these corruptions, these wickedness, they take time to germinate and to grow. They're not the sort of things that happen overnight. Many of the sins that Christians fall into in midlife or later life were sins that were taking root and growing in them for years beforehand. That they may have been keeping under wraps or they may have been keeping some sort of control over. But over time, they've actually just nursed the sin along to the point where finally it breaks out. You've seen with older people that some of them get sweeter as they get older. They become more delightful to be around. But that's not true of everyone. Some older people get more miserable to be around as they get older. And why is that? Well, because there's been some sins in their lives that have been left un...

Undisciplined. Unchecked. Not repented of. And as they get older, those sins grow in strength to the point that in their older age, they come out. They bear fruit. They cause problems. How is it that men commit adultery after 20 years of marriage? Well, it's probably fair to say that there was sexual sin that was being nursed for many years previous to that. That there were temptations that were being... cultivated. Even if in private and quietly, they were there. And as he got older, he says, you know, I'm tired of this. Marriage is hard. So he turns away. If you'd asked him at the beginning of his life whether or not he thought he'd be an adulterer by the time he was 45 or 50, he said, no, I'm not going to do that. If you asked a couple who's about to get married or who's been married for just a few years, do you ever think you'll be an adulterer? They say, no. And yet it does happen. How does it happen?

We get tired. We let down our guard. We stop fighting. All because we think, I would never do that. Don't you think that's what the Israelites would think right now as they're going into the land, having just been delivered in these battles against Og and Sion and all of these victories that they've received as they're east of the Jordan? They're thinking, God's been with us. Look at this thing he's done for us. We're not going to turn away from him. I'll tell you, that's the first step in falling away from the Lord is thinking that you would not actually do it. It's much more wise to realize that you couldn't be tempted in such a way as to deny the Lord. You remember Peter, right? Peter says, I'll die with you. And Jesus says, no, you won't. You'll deny me three times before the rooster crows. It was inconceivable to Peter that he would do that. And within a matter of hours, he learned something about himself.

We would do well to learn those things about ourselves as we listen to this word this morning than through experience. Haven't you ever ended up in some sort of sin that if you were asked ahead of time, would you do that? You would have said, no, I wouldn't do that. Well, how did you end up there then? How did it happen? This is what Moses is warning them against. He's warning them against tomorrow's sins, not just today's. Alexander Pope, who is an English poet, once wrote a very short poem and he said this. He said, vice is a monster of so frightful main as to be hated needs but to be seen. Meaning that if we're confronted with some sort of wickedness or some sort of sin, we recoil from it. We're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But then he goes on and he says, yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, we first endure, then pity, then embrace. And so what is he saying? Well, he's saying this is the trajectory of

of our lives if we're not careful we'll face sins in our lives we'll see them we'll recoil from them and say i would never i couldn't i couldn't i would not but as often as those but but if we don't kill the sins and fight the sins and stay on guard against them if we just think oh well that's just a that's just a thought too often we become familiar with her face we first endure we just fight against it you know through through brute strength i just wouldn't do that then we pity ourselves Eventually we embrace it. Eventually we end up in the sin. It takes time. There are things that you and I are doing right now as husbands or wives, as parents, as children, that are going to bear fruit 20 years from now in our lives. And we don't know what they are. Isn't that the quandary of every parent is they hope they did a good job raising their kids, but they don't really find out for a long time what their weaknesses and failures were.

But they were doing things when the children were little for whatever reason that they're going to learn about later. As having been good or as having been bad or as being helpful or not helpful. If we become too comfortable with an idea, with some sort of sin, we'll get closer and closer to falling into it over time. Falling into doing the thing that we never would have imagined ourselves doing. And this is the danger that the Israelites were facing. They were about to go into this land, this promised land that had been promised to them. This was an incredible blessing. Incredible blessing. It was one of the terms of the covenant God had made with them. God had promised to be their God. They had promised to be his people. He had promised to give them a land. And they're about to receive it. As the Lord gives them this land, the danger that they're going to face, not immediately, but over time, is that they deserve that land. That they were entitled to that land. That that land was theirs. That they had earned it.

They were going to forget that God was merciful in giving it to them. And the danger in all of that is that if they forget that God is merciful in giving it to them, they'll lose sight of the fact that God could take it away from them. They never did realize that. They thought he's giving us a land and it's going to be ours. And that's true so long as they worshiped him alone. But if you know the Old Testament history, you know that's not what they did. They didn't worship him alone. And what is it? What did God do? Maybe another way of asking it is, was God faithful to what he says here? That they will perish quickly from the land. That they won't live long in it. That they will be utterly destroyed. Did that happen to Israel? On more than one occasion. On more than one occasion. You see this pride, this entitlement, showing up even in the time of Jesus. When they're coming to him and they're listening to him, the people, the Pharisees,

The Pharisees didn't like what he had to say. He has this long discourse with them in the early chapters of John. But one of the things they answered him when he was talking to them about their sins and their need to believe and their understanding of who he was, they said to him, Abraham's our father. What's the consequence of them saying Abraham is our father? Well, the consequence of it is them saying, this stuff, it's all ours. It belongs to us and nobody else. Abraham's our father. They didn't think. that what they had could be taken away from them. Their temple, they didn't think it could be destroyed. They didn't think that God would do it. Even though he had already done it before, they still were like, this stuff's all ours. And they were rejecting the Messiah as they were saying it. We have Abraham as our father. Jesus has choice words for them in another place not too far away. He says, you say that you have Abraham as your father, but he's not your father. He didn't do the things that you do. You have Satan as your father. It's very intense what he says to them.

And so there's a very real danger that the Israelites are going to face. And that's that they would assume that because God has given them this land, that he wouldn't take it away again. But if someone asked you, apart from this text, just in general, I said, why did God send the Babylonians or the Assyrians to take away, to carry away the Israelites into captivity? What would your answer be? Wouldn't it simply be? They were unfaithful to God, and he was disciplining them. He was taking away what he had given to them because they'd been unfaithful with it. That's the simple answer. And they were warned and warned and warned. Even in this passage, they were warned against that sort of judgment coming someday, that they would lose what God had given to them. God had chosen them, and God had blessed them. But God never said that if they were unfaithful, he wouldn't discipline them or destroy them. That is what he did.

Now here's the danger. As I talk about all of this, you wonder, so are you saying that we can lose our salvation and that we should live in the sort of fear that you're trying to impress us with here? And I'm saying we need to be mindful and careful about being deceived. That's what we need to be careful about, especially as young men and women. Many of us have not gone through the hardships that we will before we meet Jesus. Maybe we've had some. I'm not saying no one here has suffered or that the suffering has been superficial. But as a general rule, we're young people. Our kids are young. Our marriages are young. Our bodies are young. What we'll do as things deteriorate or if we struggle is yet to be seen. And it would be foolish for us to assume that we'll handle all of those things well and without any stumbling. Better for us to be on guard so that we don't stumble.

Or so that when we stumble, we pick one another up. This is what it means to live by faith. Some of us are more predisposed to naturally doubt our salvation or to wonder about our standing with God and to think, is he angry with me and am I a Christian? And so this sort of a sermon or this sort of text is not the sort of thing we want to read, not the sort of thing we want to hear, in part because we think that we're scrupulous enough with ourselves. We don't need God to be scrupulous with us and to warn us. We're already scared about this stuff. I'm sure that there were people like you when this was originally said, and you need to hear it. We need to be warned. We need to be stopped and slowed down. We need to get out of our pride or our presumption or our anxiety or our fear.

Enough to take account of where we are and what we are and who we are. It's possible even for those who are anxious and fearful about losing their salvation to feel entitled to it just the same as everyone else. And so we need to stop and say, there's a warning here from God and it's a gracious warning. It's a gracious warning. When a parent tells their child, if you do that, there are going to be consequences. They're not being mean. They're loving their child so that their child doesn't face the consequence. That's what this text is. And we really do need to learn to read the warnings of God as a mercy and a kindness. The most cruel thing you could do is to see danger and not tell the people you're responsible for about it so that when they fall into it, they had no idea. That's cruel. But to warn them is gracious and loving.

And so Moses says, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today. God had saved them out of the bondage of Egypt and he was now giving them a good and fertile land. If in the future they provoked God to anger by their idolatry, Moses says that heaven and earth will witness to them as examples of greater faithfulness to God than they themselves have accomplished. What he's saying in effect is the sun comes up when it's supposed to and it goes down when it's supposed to. It does what I've created it for. And it does it well, and it does it without failure. It's never late. It just does what it's supposed to forever. Unless by some special dispensation, it stands in the sky at the request of the people so they can win the battle. It just does what it's supposed to do. The trees grow. The rain falls. The wind blows. They do what I made them to do, but you don't.

And I've given much more to you than I've given to them. I've put my image into you. You are made in my image. And these trees do a better job of thanking me for it than you. That's what he means when he says, I'm calling heaven and earth as witness to you today. But these inanimate objects with no souls and no brains and no ability to reason or think or believe, it would be a shame if we were outdone by trees, wouldn't it? But that's what he's saying here. Sometimes God uses wicked people. the Babylonians or the Assyrians in the Old Testament to discipline his people, Israel. But in this account, Moses doesn't use people, but rather just the sun and the moon and the stars and the creation to show that with much less ability, they're better at obeying God. We should never be outdone by the creation and our love and devotion to God. He didn't send his son to save the trees, but to save us.

And so if a creation can obey God, how much more should we, his people, listen to these warnings and heed them? He says that he will call them to witness that they will surely perish from the land where they are going. They will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed. Now this is the actual warning. We've been talking about the warning. We've been seeing it. But now this is the actual warning. He says if you do these things, if you act corruptly, if you make idols, If you do what's evil in the sight of the Lord, God's going to cut you down. And the danger, as I've already mentioned, was that they didn't believe that that would happen. We sort of joke about God judging people. You know, I don't know how common it is today, but it used to be that, you know, if someone lied or someone said something blasphemous, we kind of jokingly said like, oh, God's going to strike you down, step away from you, lightning bolt going to come from heaven. It was almost like a joke. Like we didn't expect it to actually happen because we haven't seen it happen.

So is God unfaithful or unaware of his people's offenses if he doesn't act immediately? Nope, he's not. The danger is that if God doesn't act immediately, we'll think that he won't act at all. And that's a dangerous thing to believe. He's giving them a good land, but along with that land, he promises to take it away from them if they act wickedly and if they go astray. You remember the New Testament, all of the trouble? that the Jews caused at this simple fact that the Gentiles could come in and be the people of God? They just couldn't believe it. It was unbelievable to them. How could God extend our privileges to other people? But God does them one better. He doesn't keep the Jews and extend their privileges to other people. He removes their privileges and gives them to another people. They couldn't believe it.

They couldn't believe it. They thought God would never wear his people. And yet he did. Romans 11, it says, if some of the branches were broken off and you, meaning those original branches were the Jews, if some of the branches were broken off and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them, then became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. But if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in. Quite right. They were broken off for their unbelief. But you stand by your faith. Not be conceited, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.

Behold then the kindness and severity of God to those who fell severity, but to you, God's kindness. If you continue in his kindness, otherwise you also will be cut off. They're good reform people. So we don't want to talk in terms of people being cut off. And we like, we like covenants and we like signs and we like, you almost caught it, buddy. He just threw a Cheerio up and tried to catch it in his mouth. He has no clue. I'm talking to you. You got caught. I've got your attention, don't I? We don't think in terms of being cut off. It's just unbelievable to us. My point this morning is to make it believable that God really does cut off people who aren't faithful to him. There's all kinds of straw men and all kinds of misrepresentations of what I'm saying that Satan will plant in your minds and try to convince you of. I'm not saying that to be one of God's people, you have to be perfectly faithful. That's unattainable.

Jesus is the only one who's been perfectly faithful. We haven't been. So none of us can take hold of that standard and reach up to it. But here God is dealing with our hearts. What kind of men are we? What kind of women are we? Do we really love God or are we just playing at it? Are we Christians because it's convenient? Are we Christians because God did something for us in the past? Are we Christians because other people expect us to be? Do we act like this? Because we see it as being advantageous or what's required of us. Or are we here and do we act like Christians because we are Christians? Not perfect people. Not people who are without sin. Not people who are without failures or shortcomings. And when we hear these warnings, do we go, I could see myself falling away. If God wasn't merciful to me and preserving me and keeping me, I know where I'd end up. Do you know where you would end up if God wasn't merciful to you?

Are you accustomed to relying on his grace and his mercy and his forgiveness? Or are you accustomed to relying on your own intellect and your own strength and your own power? As you get older, those things will diminish. That's part of the problem with getting older, is the strength and vitality of youth wanes. And then what's left over is exposed. And so we should be careful not to become proud and not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought. Paul says in the section I just read from Romans, do not be conceited. Do not be conceited. Don't think that because God has been merciful to you in the past that you have no obligation to him. In his mercy given to us at the cross, through Jesus, he has not just obligated himself to us, but us to him. And if we neglect that obligation, he'll cast us aside. That's what happened with the Jews. Not every single one, not every single individual Jew, but as a nation, as a people, he cast them aside.

God deals or God prunes his people and he cuts out the deadwood. He really does. I remember years ago, our church isn't, you know, decades old, but long enough ago, 10 years or more ago, that there was a time when we lost in our church, probably like 30 people in like six months, which you'd be like, oh no, it was terrible. And we did love, I did love the people. We were sad to see them go, but there was interesting things that. that came to surface. There's two things that were surprising. One was very few of the service positions that people filled in our church were left vacant, meaning that people that left weren't serving. They didn't go, oh no, what are we going to do with all the things they used to do? The other thing that was apparent was our giving didn't change at all. I know you're in church, we're not supposed to talk about money, but where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. And all the people that left at that time, our giving didn't notice it.

And I've come to describe that time in life as God pruning our church, cutting out all the deadwood. And then the church grew after that. It was very sweet. So we want to not be deadwood, okay? We want to not get pruned and tossed into the fire. When God's people fall into sin, he does discipline them. Were there faithful people who were carried off to Babylon or Syria? Yes. There was a remnant who faced the discipline that the others did. And yet it caused something different in them, and this is what we'll come to see in next week's sermon, is that when God disciplined them, when he destroyed them, it caused two different things to happen. One was death, and the other was repentance. And it's often not until God disciplines us and takes us in hand that we find out who we are and what we are. We were talking about this some in Sunday school. But I want to say to you that you ought not to presume on God's

generic kindness, his general kindness, his common grace as a means for dismissing your sins and saying they're no big deal. If you're a Christian, you've joined yourself to the Lord and made vows to serve him at your baptism. And those vows are incumbent upon you for the rest of your life. You don't get to walk away from them or have a time out from them or say, you know, I don't feel like it anymore. Or I don't like that church. Or I don't like that preacher. Or This is going to cause conflicts in my family or in my workplace. You've joined yourself to him. You're bound to him. You'll live if he wills for you to live, and you'll die if he wills you to die. And the question is not whether you'll live or whether you'll die, but whether you'll be faithful in whatever he calls you to. And so we have to be on guard not to deceive ourselves or not allow ourselves to be deceived, to be lulled to sleep, to become unaware of the danger that we may face.

Satan would love nothing more than for you to presume erroneously that there's no danger. There is danger. There is danger. Satan is a roaring lion prowling around seeking someone to devour. And we would be the pinnacle of fools to think that we weren't one he would like to have for dinner. So we ought to be on guard. And part of being on guard is asking God simply to have mercy on us and protect us because we don't have the strength to protect ourselves. We don't have the wisdom or the know-how or the ability to thread the needle of life perfectly. And many times, we don't even have the ability to do it well. And so what are we to do? We're to cry out to God and ask him to be merciful to us. That's it. Save us, protect us, keep us in your grace. Be faithful to us and help us to be faithful to you. When the difficult times come, prepare me for them.

Now, you may not feel prepared for them, and that's okay. But you ought to ask God to prepare you for them. Trials will come. Jesus tells us in this world we'll have trouble. And then he encourages us and he says, but take heart for I've overcome the world. So be vigilant. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith. Serve him. Follow him. Obey him. Confess your sins quickly and often. And trust that God will be merciful to you in receiving you into his presence. Because he's faithful even when we're not. As Paul tells us, he can't deny himself. This is what it means to live by faith. And this is what it means to be a child of the covenant. It doesn't mean you're better than everyone else. It doesn't mean you have special privileges. It doesn't mean that God chose you because you were the best of the best. If God chose you, then praise God for that. Praise him for it. And serve him for it. Let's pray.