Sermon Tone Analysis

Deuteronomy 12:1-14

There!

 

/These are the decrees and laws you must be careful to follow in the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess—as long as you live in the land.

Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains and on the hills and under every spreading tree where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods.

Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places/.

You must not worship the LORD your God in their way.

But you are to seek the place the LORD your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling.

To that place you must go; there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you have vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.

There, in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the LORD your God has blessed you.

/You are not to do as we do here today, everyone as he sees fit, since you have not yet reached the resting place and the inheritance the LORD your God is giving you.

But you will cross the Jordan and settle in the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, and he will give you rest from all your enemies around you so that you will live in safety.

Then to the place the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name—there you are to bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, and all the choice possessions you have vowed to the LORD.

And there rejoice before the LORD your God, you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites from your towns, who have no allotment or inheritance of their own.

Be careful not to sacrifice your burnt offerings anywhere you please.

Offer them only at the place the LORD will choose in one of your tribes, and there observe everything I command you/.

| I |

t is a fallacious idea that one may worship the Living God in whatever manner one may choose.

The concept is so common among our contemporaries as to reign virtually unchallenged in the finest thoughts of social thinkers.

Indeed, this concept that one may worship God as one wishes has been prevalent in society since the days of Cain and Abel.

I am reminded of an incident which occurred while visiting during a period when I was overseeing a church restart in the Lower Mainland.

I encountered a woman who expressed this concept in a rather humorous fashion.

When I inquired whether she had a church connection, she replied that she was a member of the United Church of Canada.

“Oh, your husband previously informed me that you didn’t go to church,” I responded.

“That’s right,” she replied, “we don’t go to church, but we are members.

I just couldn’t go to any church other than the United Church.”

She went on to relate that the family was just too involved with their beach property in Birch Bay.

Since we were contemplating initiating a Friday evening service, I invited her to consider joining us in worship during an upcoming evening.

Upon inviting her, she replied, “Really, I am not interested.

I worship God in my own way.

I believe, ‘Do unto others as you want them do unto you,’ and I want to be left alone.”

Though she likely had not given the matter much thought; she was voicing the concept that God is a luxury—a convenience.

She was restating in modern tongue an ancient fallacy.

You cannot serve God as you choose!

You cannot be “master of your own fate” and have a viable and vital relationship to God.

You must serve God *there*.

THERE is a Specific Place — You are to seek out the place the Lord your God will choose [*verse 5*].

You error if you attempt to restrict the place of worship to physical parameters.

Perhaps you recall the dialogue between Jesus and the woman of Samaria whom he encountered at the well of Sychar?

After the Lord had confronted her with the demand that Messiah was coming and was to be worshipped, she responded with growing awe.

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.

Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” [*John 4:19-24*].

These words which Jesus spoke have become the definitive statement on worship.

Every heart may be a sanctuary.

Every body may be a temple.

Every home may be an altar.

Every workbench may be a pulpit.

All that is required is the presence of the Lord in that place.

All that is required is that the Lord be present.

The true believer knows the promise, but the experience of worship will yet be dependent upon each individual’s response to life.

Listen to the words of the Living Christ.

Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age [*Matthew** 28:20b*].

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me.

Because I live, you also will live [*John 14:18, 19*].

On Patmos, John stated, I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me.

And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone “like a son of man,” dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest.

His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.

His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.

In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword.

His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.

Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid.

I am the First and the Last.

I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever!

And I hold the keys of death and Hades.

“Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later.

The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches” [*Revelation 1:12-20*].

We have a need to cultivate the attitude which will perceive the presence of the Lord wherever we may be.

We must so live that our Lord Christ is welcome regardless of where we may find ourselves.

A Specific People are to be THERE — There, in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your families shall eat and rejoice [*verse 7*].

These words were addressed to the children of Israel.

They were the purchased from slavery in Egypt.

They were and are the chosen people of God.

They are precious to God.

This nation was chosen on the basis of love.

You are a people holy to the LORD your God.

The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.

But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt

[*Deuteronomy 7:6-8*].

This has ever been the basis for selection by the Lord God.

People imagine a cruel old man sitting up yonder, looking for an opportunity to take away peoples’ fun or to injure innocent people.

That is not the God I serve, nor is that an accurate picture of God.

Here is a more accurate picture still.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.

And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfilment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory [*Ephesians 1:3-12*].

Peter observed, You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy [*1 Peter 2:9, 10*].

*There* demands a specific people, then—you and your families.

It is not the responsibility of the church nor of the preacher, nor of the Sunday School to bring my family to the knowledge of the love of God.

I am responsible!

Each man and woman bears awesome responsibility before God.