Welcome to Delight in Grace. The Teaching Ministry of Rich Powell. pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. In Deuteronomy seven, God is instructing the people of Israel as they prepare to fight against the nations that God will give over to them. This passage talks about battling enemies and about God's blessing of health, wealth, and prosperity for the nation of Israel.
if the people will follow after him. Maybe you find yourself asking what parts of God's command and covenant with Israel still apply to us now? Under the New Covenant in Christ were not under the old covenant. In this message Pastor Rich walks through the differences between the covenants. and lays out the realities that carry over Let's listen in.
Yeah, scripture reading for today will be Deuteronomy chapter 7, verses 6 through 11. For you are a chosen, sorry, for you are a people holding to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasure possession. Out of all the heroes here on the face of the earth. If it's not a gun, you're a more in number.
and any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you. For you are the fewest of all creatures. But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath. and you swore to your fathers. that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery.
from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God. The faithful God who keeps covenant. and steadfast love of those who love him and keep his commandments. to a thousand generations.
and repays to their face those who hate him. By destroying a human. Mm-hmm. He will not be slack. with one who hates him.
He will repay him to his face. You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes. and the roles that I can then use that. That's credible. Oh, we thank you for your word.
We thank you for it. the way that you reveal Your heart to uh your character, your desires, who you really are, Lord. Thank you that it never changes. Lord, help us to be always in all of you. Lord, I pray today that we can be mindful and attentive to what you have to say.
Uh one and two. Uh now you're more and you become more like you. Yeah. Thank you again for this day. We pray in Jesus' name.
Yeah. Thank you, Wade. Good morning, church. Let's have you and copy the scriptures open to Deuteronomy chapter 7. We are in the second section of studying Deuteronomy.
Which began in chapter four, and this section is called The Call to Faithfulness. And today, the title for today's sermon is a quote again from Deuteronomy chapter 7: It is because the Lord loves you.
So we're studying the book of Deuteronomy, and Deuteronomy means second law. The first generation, they died in the wilderness, remember that, because they rebelled against the Lord Cage of Barnea. And so the Lord said, I'm going to let you wander for 40 years, and your kids that you were ostensibly so concerned about, they're the ones that are going to go into the land and take it.
So that second generation now is about to go into the promised land, the land that God promised. Abraham Isaac, Jacob. And all these that came out of Israel in the Exodus. And so they're about to go in the land. And Moses is now giving them the law a second time.
It's not a different law, it's the same law. He's just given it to them a different time because this is a new generation. That's what Deuteronomy is all about.
So some. Of you might be asking, Rich, this is Grace Bible Church. Why are we studying the law?
Well, I'm glad you asked. There's good reason for it. It is part of the, it is a significant part of the history of redemption. This is the righteous requirement of a holy God. The people whom God called to himself, he says, Because you are mine, and because you know me, and based on what you know about me, this is what I expect of you.
This is how you should behave, and that's what the law is. And so We're going to look at Deuteronomy chapter 7 today, and Deuteronomy 7 is... It's kind of like encapsulating all the blessing that God is going to give His people as they go into the land. He's going to remove the godless nations. They are going to be a blessed people.
It says in the text, they will be blessed above all other nations. And then, of course, in Deuteronomy, it's throughout the book, but we'll see it, especially when we come to the end of Deuteronomy. will be next year. You know how that goes. It's it's like You have a choice now, take it or leave it.
If you obey me and follow my commands, you will be blessed. If you abandon me and you ignore my commands, you will be overcome by your enemies. That's pretty much how it goes. That's encapsulating it. I want to understand something here before we get into Deuteronomy chapter 7, because there are some things in here that are very specific to the Mosaic.
covenant, the law. the law of Moses. which we call the Old Covenant. We're in the part of the old in the Bible that's called the Old Testament. That means Old Covenant.
There's a reason why it's an old covenant. The reason why we call it the old covenant is because there is a new covenant. And let me give you the big picture here, okay? This is what's going on here.
So let's first of all look at. This is why the Old Testament, which is the Old Covenant. Let's change the scene there here, okay?
So you've got the Old Covenant, and in the Old Covenant, You've got the family and history of Israel, which begins with Abraham, right? You've got the history of the world, right? And then you've got from Genesis 12 on, all of Scripture is focused on the family of Abraham. Including you. You're the seed of Abraham.
All of us focused on Abraham, and then, of course, Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, the history of Israel, and then specifically his son Judah. Why? Because through Through Judah would come Messiah, and specifically through David, who is the greatest king in the history of Israel. And Messiah would reign on David's throne.
So 2 Samuel 7, the Davidic covenant. Genesis 12, 34, and 15, the Abrahamic covenant. In you all nations of the earth will be blessed. All right, so that base there is the Old Testament, which is the family and history of Israel. That's why we're studying the Old Testament because that gives us everything that God accomplished.
Looking forward to Messiah and then. comes what? Messiah. And Jesus came specifically for one purpose, and what was that? to die on the cross.
So let's get the cross up there, all right? And in the cross, in Christ now, you have what we call the new covenant. Remember the night when we come to the Lord's table. And we take the cup. Jesus, that evening when he was with his disciples, he took the cup and he said, This is the what?
New covenant in my blood. In other words, I'm launching this new covenant. Because Jesus In his perfect life, perfectly fulfilled the law, and in his death, he is taking on himself the penalty for our sin. And therefore, for those of us who are in Christ, who surrender ourselves to faith in Christ, are A part of the new humanity, those who are in Christ, who are beneficiaries of the new covenant. The new covenant.
Right? Very important that we have that.
So it begins with, Romans 1:16, right? You know that one well. For I am not ashamed of the what? Gospel of Christ, for it is what? The power of God unto salvation for all who believe.
What does it say next? to the Jew first and also to the Greek. You see, so this is not just a nationalistic religion. It's not just for the Jews. It's for People.
people created in God's image. To the Jew first and also to the Greek. Isaiah 49, 6 makes it clear, this is Isaiah's prophecy that Messiah would come to be a light not only to these people, the Jews, but also to the nations that my salvation might reach the ends of the earth. Galatians 4, 4 says that in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born of a woman. Under the law.
To do what? to redeem those who were under the law. And then in John 3:16, we know that verse well, don't we? For God so loved. the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
That's for humanity. Christ came, the Messiah came for humanity. And so that he launched the new covenant. He created a new humanity in Christ. You are a part of that new humanity if You are In Christ.
Question this morning: Are you in Christ? And some of you might be asking, how do you get there? You surrender yourself in faith to Jesus Christ because he took the necessary blow of God's holy wrath in your place on the cross. And when you surrender yourself to him in faith, you get what? His righteousness.
And that makes you acceptable before holy God, and you can now be justified. and reconciled to God. That's the gospel. That's the new humanity. All of those who are in Christ.
We are now beneficiaries of this new covenant, which was prophesied in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36. Prophesied the new covenant. Why Jeremiah? Because Jeremiah watched Jerusalem burn. Because these people who with whom God made a covenant, it was a conditional covenant, He said, If you follow me, you will be blessed and live in the land.
If you do not, If you disobey me, if you abandon my laws. You will be taken over. And that's exactly what happened. And as Jeremiah witnessed that, and then Ezekiel, who wrote in exile in Babylon, they were writing about a new covenant that God would bring because the old covenant changed. No one.
Are you listening to me on this? The old covenant changed no one. The new covenant transforms at the heart, at the level of thought and desire. That's what the new covenant does. The old did not.
The law changes no one, it simply exposes sin. You've been listening to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. To hear this message and others, check out www.delightandgrace.com. to discover how to live by grace. Tune in with us on weekdays at 10 a.m.
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