Focus: Life in Christ—the Christian life—calls for a conversion life, marked by daily repentance, shaped by God’s Word, and fueled by Christ’s Spirit.
Function: To move the people to live a conversion life.
Text: Deuteronomy 30:11-20
Heidelberg Catechism, L.D.33
Everyone makes choices; some good; some bad. Some choices (such as whether you let your hair grow or keep it short) are, I suppose, neither here nor there; other choices are very important. For example, choosing to marry a Christian or non-Christian will affect your marriage and your relationship with Christ and his church for the rest of your life. Everyone makes choices. And choices have consequences.
I’m amazed, at times, at the choices people make. For example, if you choose to smoke dope, you run the risk of becoming a junkie, of messing up your life, of being unable to pursue a career. There is a clear relationship between doing drugs and a messed-up life. Check it out. Think about it: choosing a lifestyle of drinking booze, gambling, and pursuing illicit sex, for example, invariably tends to lead to a life out of control, lots of misery, and often physical death. Likewise, if you choose to be part of a gang, it’s very likely that you’ll end up either in prison or at the local morgue sometime. Simply open your eyes, check it out, wake up or smell the coffee: choices have consequences.
Today, the Scriptures come to us with the call to choose life. That life comes to us in Jesus Christ. Life in Christ is really a conversion life—a life marked by daily repentance, shaped by God’s Word, and fueled by Christ’s Spirit.
Listen to Moses speaking to the Israelites: (vs. 15, 19, 20a) “See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction….This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life….”
Consider the setting and circumstances of Moses’ call to choose life:
· God rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Forty years ago, Moses led them through the Red Sea into the wilderness. God led the way, opened up the sea, and came to the rescue of his people, time and time again. “Choose life!” said Moses. He spoke those words to a people that were saved from a cruel bondage.
We also observe that
· God discipled and disciplined these rescued Israelites. At various key moments, God revealed his awesome power, his terrifying wrath, and his incredible love and covenant faithfulness to these Israelites. They saw and felt God’s presence by virtue of the cloud leading them by day, and by virtue of the pillar of fire leading them by night. God shaped these people by rewarding their trust and by punishing their disobedience. Oh, how they experienced God’s awesome and terrifying power!
These Israelites had tasted God as it were—Think of God’s provision of manna, and quails, and water all these years. And by means of God’s Word, written on tablets, conveyed through Moses, and spoken in their presence, these Israelites knew the Lord as no other nation at that time ever knew. That’s why Moses could say: (vs. 14) “…the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.” God has rescued and shaped these Israelites so much that Moses could say: “The Lord is your life.” We also observe from the text that
· God is ready to lead these Israelites into the promised land. Having rescued his people from slavery in Egypt, having shaped them for 40 years in the desert, the Lord is opening up the future for his people; the Lord offers the Israelites a new life, a life that is centered on the Lord. Now the Israelites must make a choice: choose life—or death!
The Israelites cannot remain neutral. They must make a choice. And the choice is very clear: On the one hand they can choose life and prosperity, or they can choose death and destruction. There is no middle way. Either the one, or the other: blessings and life, or curses and death.
Now Moses reminds us how life and prosperity come to God’s people. Listen: (vs. 16) “…love the Lord your God, walk in his ways, and keep his commands, decrees and laws.” Clearly, a God-centered life brings about God’s favor or blessings.
A life of misery, destruction and death, however, comes about, says Moses (vs. 17) when “…your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and when you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them…You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.” Choose life! Says Moses. You cannot remain neutral. Live under God’s Word and covenantal care, or work against God. The one will bring life; the other will bring death. Today, God comes to you and me and impresses upon our hearts the need to make a choice. I appeal to all of you: choose life in Christ!
Congregation, life in Christ—the Christian life—calls for a conversion life, marked by daily repentance, shaped by God’s Word and fueled by Christ’s Spirit.
The story of Moses and the Israelites finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ who came to bring life to the world. The apostle John tells us in his gospel that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” (It turns out that this “Word” is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God). And John tells us that “Through (Jesus) all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”
You ask, how is Jesus our life? Why should we choose life in Jesus Christ? Well, Jesus has opened up the future for us. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus offers us forgiveness of sins, blessings for daily living, and eternal life to be lived fully once we inherit the restored new heavens and earth.
Like the O.T. Israelites in the days of Moses, we too are on a journey, a pilgrimage. We too are given a choice: Choose life in Jesus Christ. As the Israelites were to enter the Promised Land, so we may enter and inherit the promised new creation. That new creation comes to us all bundled up in Christ Jesus. So much so that the apostle John can write in his letter to the churches: (I John 5:12) “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”
Have you responded in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you trust him and love him and serve him? Does Christ Jesus live in you and you in him? If not, choose life! If so, remember: life in Christ—the Christian life—calls for a conversion life marked by daily repentance, shaped by God’s Word, and fueled by Christ’s Spirit.
Now Christians must live by faith. And faith refers to at least two things: a disposition of the heart and will. Faith also stands for content or teaching. When I ask you, what do you believe? I am talking about the content of your faith in Christ. When I ask you, how do you express your faith? I am talking about your affections, your attitude, your disposition toward Christ. The Christian life is a life of faith. And life in Christ calls for a conversion life, where faith in Christ and love and service to Christ are central to our daily living.
In light of the Scriptures, the catechism of the church insists that Christians must live by faith and express that faith every day. Listen: What is involved in genuine repentance or conversion? Two things: the dying-away of the old self; the coming-to-life of the new self. Such conversion living involves our heads, our hearts and our wills. Our whole being and the totality of our lives reflect the choice we make: either we choose life in Christ, or we choose death and destruction.
Life in Christ calls for a dying-away of the old self, which comes down to this: “to be genuinely sorry for sin; to hate sin more and more; and to run away from it.” To be genuinely sorry for sin calls for a knowledge, an awareness of what sin is; to hate sin more and more involves our emotions, our heart, our affections; and to run away from sin involves our will that says, “No!” to sin.
Thus I say that life in Christ calls for a conversion life that is marked by daily repentance. Such repentance finds its counterpart in a daily “coming to life of the new self.” Or, as the catechism puts it: in a wholehearted joy in God through Christ and a delight to do every kind of good as God wants us to.” I say it again: Choose life in Christ!
God’s Word shapes the conversion life. Moses said to the Israelites: “The word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.” God’s presence—revealed through his Word, and through his actions toward us, and through his Spirit—shapes us. God’s Word creates and stirs up faith within us. God’s Word forms our thinking and informs our actions; God’s Word bends our wills to do his bidding. That’s why I say, that God’s Word shapes our life in Christ. Choose life!
Choosing life in Christ is one thing. Living the Christian life is another. But you must choose! And as you choose life in Christ remember that you and I cannot live a life of daily repentance in our own strength. We need to lean on Christ’s Spirit, whom Christ has given to us through faith in him. The Spirit of Christ fuels the conversion life.
Apart from the Lord Jesus, I’m spiritually dead. But in Christ, the Spirit of God gives life, and strength, and grace to overcome sin and to persevere in the midst of hardship.
Today is a good day to make the choice: Choose life in Christ!
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.