← ArchivePathsWho do you think you are? I am!DateJune 7, 2020SpeakerDr Josh BurnhamText—Passages in this sermonDeuteronomy 7:74:40Deuteronomy 78:04Ephesians 213:21Genesis 1514:53TranscriptMachine transcribed. Click any line to jump there.0:00I I I I I I I I Well, my name is Josh Burnham. I didn't introduce myself earlier. I'm the lead pastor here0:28at Bethel and I get to serve with some amazing people some of you haven't even noticed but The building team that that you put in order last year renovated the stage while you were gone and0:56It looks phenomenal The only thing I requested was that they build the stage out four feet for the back row Baptist you think you can Get away from me. So I'm actually four feet closer today than I was ten weeks ago Um, and so we're just excited about this some of us. Well, where's the choir? Well, they're right back there But until they can get closer than six feet they're gonna be in our hearts But they will be back and it's gonna be exciting time1:24Uh, we have a lot of people watching online right now also and so we want to welcome you guys Uh, we're excited for you to join us and we can't wait to hear what God is doing in your life through his word In 2012 In 2012 At the U.S. Bowling Open Championship Just Just go with me here, right? We're all starving for sports In 20121:52In 2012 A man named Pete Weber Was losing And as he was losing he's being taunted by the crowd Now Pete was the best bowler He was the number one seed in the tournament And this was a tournament that would allow him to pass his father's record And he's losing, he's losing, he's getting more angry And Pete's known to have a mouth on him anyway And many of you saw this on SportsCenter because it made the not so top ten2:16He wins the championship on a strike And he turns around to his opponent and he shouts this He says, "Who do you think you are?" "I am!" And I'm thinking who knew bowling could be so much fun We have some bowlers in the audience, there's some over here, I'm not gonna look at them but If that's how you bowl, please invite me2:43Because I want to be a part of that Don't YouTube that clip Because if you're not watching it on ESPN It is not something you should watch But I began to think There are moments in our lives That cut us down to the knees And that cause us to question ourselves And they ask us, "Who do you think you are?" In February, COVID-19 Stopped every economic engine that we had built our lives upon3:12In one fell swoop If you had told me that most of the churches, if not all the churches around the world Would not have had public corporate gatherings for Easter I would have said, "You have lost your mind" And yet it happened If you had told me that again our nation would see protest Again we would see rioting3:40Because a man brutally murdered another man In the plain sight of people who were begging him to stop in George Floyd I would say, "No, that wouldn't happen" If you would have said That one of our local law enforcement would have been brutally attacked and murdered I would have said, "Oh no" Not in St. Clair4:06And over and over again these situations Caused me to say, "Joss, who do I think I am?" I've learned several things in the last weeks One, I am not in control And the second thing is I am not guaranteed tomorrow And as God's providential will would hold In January I mapped out that we would be preaching through the book of Deuteronomy4:34And here we are in Deuteronomy 7:7 And you're going to want to turn there because you don't want to miss this It's good So Deuteronomy 7:7 We're continuing through a sermon series we simply call "There are many paths but there is only one way" Something Jesus echoes in the New Testament when He says that He is the way He is the truth He is the life5:03So let me catch you, as you are turning there, let me catch you up about 400 years of history Here it is in Deuteronomy God promises Israel that He will give them a land That's why it's called the promised land You guys are sharper than the 8 o'clock crew Don't tell them I said that And through that the people that should have received the promises says God we are small in their eyes They're scary5:32They're scary We are small We don't want that land It's a good land but we don't want it We're terrified And so God says because you have rebelled you will die in the wilderness Even your leader Moses He will see the land but he will not enter into it So all of that has taken place over about 400-ish years 40 years in the wilderness And now we get to this point where God is saying Okay, as you go in Who do you think you are? Because I am6:02I am Let's read the word of the Lord together Deuteronomy 7:7 God through His servant Moses says The Lord has set His heart upon you And He chose you Not because you were more numerous than all peoples For you were the fewest of all peoples But because the Lord loved you And He kept the oath He swore to your fathers6:30He brought you out with a strong hand And He redeemed you from the place of slavery From the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt Verse 9: So know that the Lord your God Is the faithful God Who keeps His covenant Loyalty for thousands of generations And those who love Him and keep His commands But He directly pays back and destroys those who hate Him6:57He will not hesitate to pay back directly the one who hates Him So keep the command, the statutes, and the ordinances That I am giving you to follow today Let's pray Father We know that your word in Jeremiah says it is a hammer So Lord we ask that you would beat on the hearts of our lives today That we would be different when we leave7:26Because you have done something unique and powerful in us We thank you that your word is not like the grass that withers It is not like the flowers that fade but it stands forever And we thank you that you love us And have called us to be a chosen people through the blood of Jesus Christ So Lord work in us, change us, and mold us that we might look like your son We pray in Jesus name, Amen7:54Today's sermon is simply called Who do you think you are? I am Deuteronomy 7 So speaking to a people that God loves Moses shares this about the nature and the character of God He says in verse 7 we read it And for those of you who think that the Old Testament is a law And the New Testament is grace and love You haven't read your Bibles Right? Deuteronomy 78:24Deuteronomy 7 Right in the books of the law The Torah God says this The Lord has That didn't go well That didn't go well Okay Deuteronomy 5th book of the Bible Chapter 7 Verse 7 The Lord has He has loved you Or He has desired you Delighted in you Some of your verses say8:54The CSB says He has set His heart upon you Here's what's powerful about this scripture Some of us have grown up thinking And maybe even in a more legalistic context You do these things Because if you don't God is waiting from heaven To with this gigantic heavenly thumb And He is going to smite you Or smoted you And some of us felt like that, right? I can't mess up Because if the9:24Parents forgive me They didn't teach me this That's how I felt If the Lord came If Jesus came back right now Don't you be doing something That He doesn't find To be inappropriate So I'm thinking Where is He? Like Jesus could come And I just remember thinking I am trembling with fear Because God is just tolerating me He's biding His time Because He doesn't love what I'm doing So God is tolerating me9:53And yet in Deuteronomy It says something different This is the first time this word is used The word is used in Deuteronomy It's the word Hesach Which means to delight in It says in verse 7 It says that There's a strong emotional attachment Like He loves you He delights in you He doesn't say Again I'm just going to tolerate you10:24Until you get to heaven And then I'm going to glorify you And then it's going to make sense God delights in His people As much as He delights in His Son Jesus Christ He delights in you the same way And so whatever understanding you have of God Maybe it's time to think That your concept of God Has been shaped More about the songs that you listen to And the people that you listen to More than His words Now some of you might be thinking Well are you saying God is only love?10:54He's not the God of justice You must have come in late Because Amos clearly says The justice of God Will roll down like a river But if you're here today Thinking God just puts up with you Because that's what He has to do Because He's God Who in here puts up with their son that way? No, we delight in our family God delights in you He hasach you11:23One scholar, his name is Brueggemann He has a fantastic biblical mind One of the greatest scholars in the Old Testament This is what he says about this word And it's a powerful picture He says Hesach bespeaks a strong emotional attachment That runs beyond any reasonable, explicable act He says I can't explain why God loves you and delights in you But you know what? He does11:52He does That's what God is sharing with Israel Before they go into the promised land And that's what God is sharing with you Because of Jesus Christ God delights in you This is the gospel The gospel is Because of Jesus Christ The Lord has set His heart upon you I don't know about you But if I need any truth in the last several weeks This is one I want to highlight God, you have set your heart upon me Before you get the big head12:20Thinking, man Look who I am God delights in me That's what the pastor said I am His Hesach Which is not the correct past tense of the Hebrew But we'll just go with that No, it says that God chose you You didn't choose Him God chose you Look what He says right here in verse 7 To Israel The Lord has set His heart upon you And He did what? He chose you12:50Now you think Well that's just the Old Testament That's not a New Testament concept Well 1 John would say this 1 John says this is love Not that you love God But that He loves you And He gave His Son An atoning sacrifice For you Before you loved God God loved you Ephesians adds It is God's gift Why?13:20Why? In Ephesians 2 verse 9 and 10 So that no man can boast It is not of your works It's not something you have done Now chosenness Can lead to two areas that are equally sinful Some become arrogant And say I have it figured out God has chosen this group And so I am going to be arrogantly content in that Which is not what the Bible says And then there's some that are complacent And so I don't have to do anything13:49Which is not what Scripture says But we need to rest in the fact That chosenness should cause us to fall on our knees in worship Not in arrogance or complacency But we should fall on our knees and say God, why me? You are loved and you are chosen In Christ Jesus14:17That is the power of the Gospel And all of this is spoken to remind you That Christianity is not about you Listen to what Moses says here He says in the next verse Right, it's just the same verse He has his heart set on you And we say Yes God has chosen you And we say Yes And then he says Not Not because you are more numerous than all the people14:45But because you are the fewest Now some of our astute biblical scholars would say Well did not God promise Abraham in Genesis 15 That he would make his descendants as numerous As numerous as the stars Well the reminder here is that Israel began in Egypt with 70 Not 7 million And so God is saying I chose you Not because you were great15:15But because you were small This is why I believe that Christians You should be If you are a Christ follower You should be the most humblest person in the whole world You should go to the grocery store and they say Man, that's a humble dude Picking out his Oreos Because he knows Jesus Wow Man, that is a meek person What's different about them?15:44Because we know Jesus Christ And the power of this verse Is that it shows us that God did not love Israel And he does not love you For any special reason in yourself Let me deflate the balloon for right now God does not love you because you are great Or many He doesn't love you because you are white He doesn't love you because you are black16:13Or any other ethnic identity This might shock you He doesn't love you because you are Baptist Some of you are saying hallelujah He doesn't love you either because you are not Baptist He doesn't love you because you are rich He doesn't love you because you are poor God loves you because he sent his son Jesus To be your redemption16:43And your hope Do you get what God is saying here to Israel? He is saying when you go into this promised land Don't think it is because you are great I want you to remember that your God is great We should be the most humble people on the planet I think of it this way Some of you grew up in the same tortured culture that I did That in middle school you would play different games17:12Maybe it was kickball or dodgeball or Red Rover It was the games that you are not allowed to play anymore Because all of them ended in some brutal injury for someone involved But what they would do on the playground is they would pick the most physically imposing people And they were captains And so then they would go and they would find the second most athletic group They would find the person that just If you are playing kickball they found the person who couldn't kick Couldn't walk And someone was like okay I will take him17:41Right? I have to You know what God is saying to his people here? He said Josh you know that guy on the playground that had no athletic skill You know the person that the world said man don't take him Don't take her God takes that person and says watch me do work Give me the nation that's the smallest And watch me show the world how great a God I am18:08I don't know about you but that gives me hope To say Lord you can use me the same way And God says yes that is my desire in you That's God's will for your life Verse 7 Not because you were the greatest but because you were the few And now he said well how does all this take place? He tells us in verse 8 But because the Lord loves you and he kept the oath he swore to your fathers18:38He brought you out with a strong hand and he redeemed you from the place of slavery Now this is Egypt in Exodus language This is God saying that he brought his people He redeemed them The word redemption here is Exodus language It's a reminder of a gift and substitution Some of you know the story That God's people were stuck in Egypt19:06And on the night which they were delivered God said I want you to take a perfect lamb And I want you to kill that lamb And you're going to put his blood on the door frame of your house And the blood of that lamb is going to be the substitute for your life And the way God's story worked in Egypt Is that anyone who had the blood of that lamb on their door19:35The angel of death passed over As if because it was Because the blood of the lamb was the substitute for their life How does salvation work? We have a greater lamb named Jesus Christ Who gave his life Who lived a sinless life And he gave his sinless life For sinful people like me And Jesus said God don't kill him20:04Don't send him to hell I will pay his punishment Lord take me instead And when we put our faith in Jesus Christ He becomes our redemption He exchanges his life for our life And we exchange our death for his That's the way salvation works And in light of all of this20:32When you hear the question now Who do you think you are? If you have put your faith in Jesus Christ You know what you can say to that? We can say I am his Who do you think you are? God I am yours Look at your son Jesus Thank you for your redemption Thank you for the freedom God not of me But because of Jesus I am yours God working in his people21:02And he's working in his people that we might see something deeper about our father Look at what he says next He says I have brought you and I have redeemed you from the place of slavery Why in verse 9 He says know That the Lord your God is God He is the faithful God Who keeps his gracious covenant loyalty for a thousand generations As we've already sung21:32For your children And their children And their children And some of you are thinking man this song is really repeating itself You can't repeat it a thousand times That's how the grace of God That's how far it extends And even if you go home and sing that a thousand times Go a thousand times more That's the loving kindness of our Savior Remember it's not about you It's about God22:01What do we know about our God It says very clearly It says know that the Lord The covenant name of God right here Know that the Lord is what? He is God Not only is he a God He is the God and he is whose God I love this, right? He is your God Don't forget that Don't forget this is not We're going to pray to a God22:30God we hope you're listening No, we can pray God I know you love me And I know you are listening Because I am yours and you are mine And this God Keeps his covenant And he is faithful You know what I love about that word faithful? People ask me sometimes You know it sounds arrogant that you can be so confident in your salvation You know what I do? I go to this verse Because I am tired of the bill of goods22:59That many of you have been sold by religion Or someone who claims to know God And it goes like this If you just work hard If you keep your nose clean If you go to church Enough to say you go to church You live in the south That could be once a year It could be once a month Just go enough that you say you go And just give enough to say you give And just be kind enough to say you're kind If you do these things Then you will be accepted23:27You know my response to that Is if my salvation depended upon me And if you knew my heart I don't have a prayer But you know what I know about God? Let me read it again in case we missed it Verse 9 This is the reminder to Israel And the people who love him in covenant relationship Know that the Lord your God23:56Your God He is God And he is what? So when that means that you are unfaithful What is God? When that means that you are sinful What does that make God? Faithful When that means that you are filled You are ridden with guilt And you are ridden with your past And everything that you don't want to remember What is God?24:25Faithful Faithful Some of you need to highlight this verse Because when the enemy comes And he reminds me of my past Pastor how could any God love you? I say Satan you forgot that My God Is a faithful God But don't you remember your sins? Excuse me? Excuse me? Because what I know24:54Is that my God is a faithful God But what about your past? My God is a faithful God But Josh what about that time you poured your life on the altar And you say God cleanse me I'll never do this again And you walked out of here And the same anger you confessed Was the same anger that penetrated the recesses of your life When you hit your car My God is a faithful God25:25And the joy of this verse is that even when Israel was unfaithful And they were unfaithful And they were unfaithful That did not diminish the eternal faithfulness of their God There is such hope in this passage Oh the great joy And so I just want to say to you right now Dear brother Rest in his faithfulness Dear sister25:55Dear sister Rest It doesn't depend upon you So praise God Praise God It doesn't depend upon us He is a faithful God You might be thinking Okay, that's awesome So what do we do with all of this? Moses does not keep us in suspense He does not ask them to wait till tomorrow Look what he says in his word Verse 11 He says Because God has loved you with his heart26:24He's delighted in you Because he has chosen you Because he is faithful Because he is your God Because of all this He will hold guilty those who are guilt-full Full And he says Okay, now keep The commands The statues The ordinances In verse 11 That I am giving you Today Did you catch what happened? God Is faithful What verse is that found in by the way?26:54I'll give you a hint Verse 9 And then God says Keep my word Keep my ways What verse is that in? 11 We just read it, right? Okay, now see what's happening here God doesn't say Keep my word In verse 9 And then I will be faithful In verse 11 God says in verse 9 Faithful so Keep my, see there's nothing in the word of God that's accidents27:24Don't let Satan flip the scripts Grace and obedience always flow downhill Some of you are worn out because you've been working your whole life With the hopes that if I do enough If I go upstream hard enough I will finally make it to heaven And God says there's nothing you can do Obedience flows downhill And here's something else that's happened in our world and our society27:53That is a lie from the pit of hell We have separated the love of God And our keeping of his word and his ways We have said, well, love God first And then if you're a super Christian Keep his ways What does God say? He says, when you love me You will obey me And he says, when you obey me You will love me Jesus says it this way28:23Those who love me, keep my word So if your exterior love for God Is vocalized and displayed by your obedience to him What does that say about your love? Keep the commands of God Martin Luther says it this way I love what Martin Luther says This quote, I say it often He says, you are saved by faith alone28:51But a faith that saves is never alone It's exactly what the word is saying Some of you are convicted right now Because you say, I love God, I love God, I love God, I love God You'll sing, if we sing a song about I love you, Lord And I love you, you would throw yourself You would roll down the aisles But if we sing a song, I obey you, Lord You say, okay, pastor, that's enough Mm-mm You can't have it both ways29:21And may God call us to a place Where the keeping of his word and the love of his word Is flowing downhill from relationship Keep his word found in verse 11 To a faithful God in verse 9 Who delights in you Verse 7 You see what's happening? Keep his word Because the God is faithful And he delights in you Obedience flows downhill29:50Some of you are here today And you're thinking, I don't even know who this God is I think there are two There are two things in our lives It's really the two manifestations of the same issue That keep you from Christ Some of you are proud You think that I have made my life And I am good enough And I'm okay dying with the hopes That one day God will weigh my life And I will be found good30:19The Bible says there is none of us who are good There is no pastor There is no pope There is no person you have ever encountered in your life Other than Jesus Christ that is sinless And you know where pride takes you? If you say, well I'm not going to confess Christ today as my Lord and Savior I'm just going to live as I am Pride wants to lead you to the gates of hell And then hand you off to eternal destruction30:47It's not worth it It is not worth your pride to lose your soul But I think there is another manifestation of pride That shades itself in humility But it's really not It goes like this God, I am too sinful for you to love me God, I have too much baggage for you to save me And you know what Deuteronomy says to you?31:14Who do you think you are? That you would think you are so sinful That God's grace is not enough That's why Jesus says Come all who are weary And I will give you rest And if you have never confessed Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior There is no one here that Jesus did not die for Confess to Him through prayer31:43Say God, you are what I need Many of you here are Christ followers And you need to sing and pray and rejoice in the time of response Because you feel like you are anything other but God's And your response through His word is this Who do you think you are? And our gospel response is God, I'm yours God, I'm yours32:13Not because I'm big Or rich Or great Because your son, Jesus He is enough Let's pray Father← Previous in PathsMany Paths, One Narrow WayNext in Paths →You need an Intercessor
