Deuteronomy 11:16-21 Bible Study | Episode 884

February 27, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Deuteronomy 11:16-21 Bible Study | Episode #884

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in Deuteronomy, chapter 11. And starting with verse 16, there's two really important ideas that I get from reading this and there's probably a lot more. If I spent a lot, a lot of time trying to just come up with as many points as possible because, you know, the word of God is alive and it's living and it has depth to it that oftentimes we don't see until the time comes for us to see it. God reveals himself in due season. He does his work in our hearts and our minds over time. But verse 16 says this. Take heed to yourself, lest your heart be deceived and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, lest the anger, Lord's anger be aroused against you. And he shut up the heavens so that there be no rain and the land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which the Lord has given you. Now, what God is saying is, be careful, because if. If you turn from me, the consequences of those actions is going to be that the land that I've sent you, that I've given you, the land that I've given you in order for you to prosper and to have my best, is going to be ruined. And so really, the underlying thought here is that our lives have consequence. And that is the important thought here, that our lives are consequential, okay? And our actions have consequence. Therefore, our lives are consequential. Now, that's a progression. So as you think about it, if what I do makes a difference, if what I do has a consequence that follows after it, meaning I do this, and then there is something that happens as a result of it. Very important understanding. Think about it. If what I do results in something else taking place, then my life and my actions have consequence to them. Therefore, I am consequential meaning I matter. And that's probably the most beautiful part of our relationship with God. He is great. He's mighty. He is the creator of the universe. He's creator of all things with the sound of his voice. And yet a finite being. And when I say finite, small in stature, small in relation to the size of the universe, small in the breadth of our lives, very short, very, very little. The amount of movement we do in God's creation, meaning the distances that we travel are very small and minute. And yet to God, he has made sure that what we do has a consequence. And he even says this here, that if you do not follow me and you do not worship me, I'm going to cut off the rain from heaven. That's consequential, that matters. That's something that is actually making a difference in his creation. He's saying that your actions affect what I made. I have made you such that your actions will affect what I've made. You're a consequential being. You matter to him. You have consequence in his creation. It makes a difference. And so understanding that the actions in my life have consequence in the world I live in is important. Therefore, we deal with the consequences of the decisions we make. Then he says this. Notice, now I'm going to move to something that I think is really important. Therefore, you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart. Meaning that you should build a supply of them. Laying them up means, like, you know, putting them away for wintertime. It's like taking a harvest and storing them in a barn so that winter comes and there's no food on the ground. You can go to the barn. You lay them up in your heart, in your soul. You begin to store them in your mind. He says you should do this and bind them as a sign on your hand. And you shall be as frontlets between your eyes. Meaning you should have the word of God right there in front of you, right in front of your face, always with your hands, in everything you do and in everything you see. You should bind up the word of God. Why? Because your life has consequence and your actions are consequential. And my word will instruct or inform your actions. My word will instruct how you think about the world, how you see the world. Put them before your eyes so that you see the world from my perspective. Put them in their hand, your hands. So that you realize my actions. My actions bring about consequence. It changes things. What I do matters. And you go, well, Pastor, I mean, you may matter, you know. But I don't matter. That's wrong. That is not true. That is not true. Jesus died for you. That means you matter. That means the things you do and the things you. And even you say, well, Pastor, I've messed it up so bad, it doesn't really matter if I get it right now. Not true. Not true. In fact, the more you may have messed it up prior to knowing Christ, the more consequential perhaps your life might be because you are a greater sign of God's grace. Now, the relative amount of how bad. We love to try to figure out how good we are in the kingdom or we love to measure how bad we are in the kingdom. And the truth is we're all utterly wicked. Okay? And so you may. Your. Yours might have manifest a whole lot more in the world, therefore you have a whole lot more consequence going on. But we're all utterly wicked. And Jesus's grace is. Is. Is complete and perfect for all of us. So your life does. Is consequential and therefore it matters. And you ought to store God's word up in your heart and you ought to store it up before your eyes and you ought to hold to it as close and tightly as you can. Because why? Well, because we're going to pass this thing down. These things are going to matter, not just. If it weren't just for. If it were. If it were just about you, then that would be one thing and it would matter and it would matter a whole lot. But it's not just about you. It's about the generations to come, whether they be your children or they be the children of others, the children of your family around you. He says in verse 19, you shall teach them to your children. Speaking of them, when you sit in the house, when you walk in the way, when you lie down, and when you get up, arise up, and you shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of heaven above the earth. What he's saying is, I want to make heaven on earth. I want to make. I want to make this a place where it will matter and your days will be many, many in my promises. See, what he's saying is this, this. This life matters and your actions really, really do matter. Your what happens as a result of my word with you is going to make a difference. It's going to really do, do something important. And let me say this of all the jobs I've had and I've had a lot of jobs. I've been a, I've been a pastor, I've been a teacher, I've owned companies, I've, I've, I've been in the military, I've coached athletics. I've, I've done a lot of, a lot of things. Now I'm a, I'm a judge and I'm learning to do that job. Of all the jobs I've ever had, the, the one that was probably the most consequential and the most difficult was one of being a dad. I mean, it was a hard job and raising children are resilient. You can mess it up and they can make it back from that. But the truth is that every day in every way, being a parent or being a grandparent or being an aunt and uncle or having some role in a child's life is very, very consequential. It's very, every, every thought and action taken with that child matters. It's a tough job. And when we do it as, as a family, that's, that's difficult. When you do it by yourself, it's immensely difficult. It's immensely difficult. It's a difficult job. And, and, and, and, and sometimes we get so stuck in the minutia of the actual day to day just making it through that we forget that our, our thoughts and our actions and the things we say and do and the things we do for them and, and the way we instruct them and way we model our lives before them is, is important. It has consequence in their life. It makes a difference how I react to things they're watching, how they're trying to figure out how to live life. How do I see the world? What is my perspective on life? Do I see the world as God's opportunity for me or as I see the world, just something to make it through? What I teach my children, what I teach my grandchildren, what I teach my nieces and nephews, what I teach my friends, children with my life as they see me and as they say, life, what does it matter? It does matter. It matters a lot. There's a lot of consequence to that. He says, he says, you are stored up in your heart. You ought to keep it on your hand and right before your eyes. You don't think about it all day. Why? Why? Because you need to teach it to your children. You need to speak it to them. When you sit down, when you get up, when you walk in the way, when you lie down, when you Rise up from bed. You need to talk about before you go to bed. After you go to bed you should. After you get up. He says, and you shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. Meaning they need to be all around those children. And that the days of and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them like the days of heaven above the earth. What he's saying is, I can multiply those days and make them many, many days, make them eternal days. Because we're consequential. Our actions have consequence, therefore we are consequential. Our lives matter. Your life matters and your life can be used to glorify God. And your life affects the world you live in. We matter. Therefore God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, trust him, faith him, believe in him, should not perish. Meaning, just pass away as nothing, but have eternal life. Meaning, have a consequential life, a life that matters because it's God's life. So you matter and your actions have consequences. What you feed into your life will reap back to you consequences. Because you're consequential. What you feed into your children will reap consequences also. God wants them to know him also.

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep.

You, that he'll make his face to.

Shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.