Deuteronomy 30, What Are You Capable Of?

Deuteronomy chapter 30 hear the word of the Lord and when all these things come upon you the blessing and the curse which

I have said before you and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you and Return to the

Lord your God you and your children and obey his voice and all that I command you today With all your heart and with all your soul

Then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and he will gather you again from all the peoples where The Lord your

God has scattered you if your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of the heaven from there the

Lord your God will gather you and from there he will take you and the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your father's possessed that you may possess it and he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your father's and The Lord your

God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring So that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live and the

Lord your God will put all these curses on your foes and enemies who persecuted you and You shall again obey the voice of the

Lord your God and keep all his commandments that I command you today the Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous and all the work of your hand in the fruit of your womb and the fruit

Of your cattle and the fruit of your ground for the Lord will again take delight in prospering you as he took delight in your father's

When you obey the voice of the Lord your God to keep his commandments and his statutes That are written in the book of the law when you turn to the

Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul For this commandment that I have commanded.

I command you today is not too hard for you. Neither is it far off? It is not in heaven that you should say who will ascend to heaven for us to bring it to us

That we may hear it and do it Neither is it beyond the sea that you should say who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us that we may

Hear it and do it But the word is very near you. It's in your mouth and in your heart so that you can do it

See I have set before you today Life and good Death and evil if you obey the commandments of the

Lord your God That I command you today by loving the Lord your God with and by walking in his ways and by keeping his

Commandments and his statutes and his rules Then you shall live and multiply and the Lord your

God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of It but if your heart turns away and you will not hear

But are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them I declare to you today that you shall surely perish

You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death blessing and curse therefore choose life

That you and your offspring may live Loving the Lord your God obeying his voice and holding fast to him for he is your life and Length of days that you may dwell in the land that the

Lord swore to your fathers to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob To give them may the

Lord had his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word Well, what are you capable of?

What can you do? Of course you may ask well Do you mean what I can do right now or what could

I do if I set my mind to it? If I if I worked hard to do it, yeah, those are two different things now right now

You're each capable of I assume of doing your jobs of your hobbies of all kinds of other things because you've had the training the experience and You have the talent you have the abilities

Even if some of those abilities you think are just so basic But their abilities like the ability to make yourself get up and go to a shop every day

Get go to work So you're not fired or go to a shop where maybe you're the boss and no one's looking over your shoulder

You could blow it off. You could stay home and just decide not to show up to work But you go anyway day in day out.

That's an ability You might think some parts of your job are easy like anyone can do them Someone who visited here said about me.

So all he does is talk Yeah, that's about it Some things look easy, but they're a lot harder than they look

You're running. Some people look at a long -distance runner and think I can do that We had a guy here who played basketball here came every

Sunday evening and he wanted to run with me on my old six -mile run I said sure come along but then

I told Mary as we're about to head off Be ready to go out and pick him up because he probably won't be able to finish.

I was right Running a restaurant seems easy for those who've never tried it That's that's when we get so many people trying to operate restaurants open them up because and so many of them fail

They figure you know, I can cook at home. Surely I can do it for a business. I've worked landscaping assembly line fast food is in restaurant warehouse security

Substitute teaching and editing and by far the hardest work is restaurant work

Now some things are harder than they appear because they take a certain gift comedy

Either writing or speaking comedy is the hardest genre to do well in Cooking at least for me almost anything.

I try to cook turns out badly surfing so I'm told Music playing any musical instrument.

It looks easy for those who do it Well, but that's only because they have won the skill and they've applied themselves to make the most of that skill

Learning new languages at least as an adult now children they pick up whatever languages is around them whatever they grow up in but for an adult the brain kind of like cement it gets

Hard and it most of us then find it hard to learn a new language It's a talent for an adult to learn a new language earlier this week

Mary and I were watching women's gymnastics and they're getting ready for the Olympics But they make it look so easy all the stuff they're doing

But you know doing a backflip on a balance beam is incredibly hard I just find that amazing a backflip on a balance beam

I mean I could hardly stand up on the thing and they're doing a backflip and landing on it Some of those things are hard like a backflip on a balance beam because they not only require a lot of practice and training

But also a lot of talent and no matter how hard maybe I if I had how hard I tried

I couldn't do it Because I don't have the talent Last week, I said much to the offense of the modern

American that you really can't do Anything you set your mind on we know we've been drilling into people's heads now for generations

That we can indeed do whatever we resolve to do whatever you set your mind on you can do it Well, no, not really some things not only require willpower and discipline setting your mind to it, but they require skill talent

Ability you either have the ability to do it or you don't and if you don't have it You're not gonna be able to do it as the coach said in chariots of fire.

You can't put in what God left out. I Couldn't be an NBA player

Okay, I don't care you went back in time and trained me from when I was like two years old

I think I know my skills well enough to say that those skills were left out of me Maybe I could cook better if I'd been trained or play some musical instrument maybe maybe badly

Maybe not at all. I could have learned Mandarin if I was taught it as a small child I was raised in that environment, but now

I don't think I could be very good at it No matter how hard I tried no matter how you much you absorb me in a

Mandarin environment I still I still wouldn't be able to pick it up very well. I Don't have that ability.

Well, what about for you? What are you capable of? What even an ability to do and theology

Armenian ism Says that you are capable of doing whatever

God commands that God can't command us to do What we are on unable to do supposedly that wouldn't be fair So when the

Lord Jesus commanded us in Matthew chapter 5 verse 48 to be perfect Then we can if we tried hard enough they say

Be perfect be sinless So our lack of perfection our ongoing sin then is only because we lack the willpower

Is that true? Is that a good line of reasoning? My father told me that in the

Air Force the officer training had what they call it a confidence course It was an obstacle course in which the new trainees would be incapable of finishing

At the very start of their training drill sergeant In charge of this training would make them run the course at the beginning of their training to show them that they could not do it

They lacked the ability now in that case the purpose was so that at the end of the training after the process that they were then supposed to be

Able to finally finish the course and have confidence see how far they've come But what if God's commands like in Matthew 5 that it's not good enough just not to murder

Don't hate that it's not good enough just to not commit adultery. Don't lust be perfect.

What if those commands are to show you? Like at the beginning of that confidence course That you're not perfect What if the purpose is to crush your confidence in yourself?

What if it's to get you to know? That you aren't Capable that you're not capable of obeying of keeping

God's commands Not even capable of believing of Loving the

Lord that you need a change in what you're capable of a change of heart

What are you capable of? Well, we see that here in three major parts the heart the work and finally the choice

What you are capable of? Depends on your heart the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart

Here we're called to obey the voice of the Lord with all Notice that you've a piece out several times with all our heart with all our soul in verse 2

God wants complete loving eager unreserved heartfelt

Obedience, so it's not good enough just to obey to keep the rules to not kill someone

When you get angry at them, maybe a rude Unreasonable customer of it or just a thief

It's not good enough just not to kill him You're not supposed to hate it. Not even to curse him blurt out you idiot

It's not good enough to keep yourself from adultery You have to keep yourself from pornography from looking at the looking the wrong way at some person at a swimsuit

It's not good enough just to give a tie to keep the law to give the required percent keep the rules

Instead you're supposed to be generous from your heart because you want to bless others You live according to all

God's commands because it comes from your heart Are you capable of that?

kind of obedience well, if not Then the curses come the terribleness of God outside of Christ.

There's death if you can't be perfect from your heart There's judgment and here verse one they get the curses we read about two weeks ago in chapter 28 and they are scattered around the

World now, that's not just an obstacle for them to overcome that now they're supposed, you know

Supposed to do the hard work of getting back to the land. It's meant to spur them to self -examination to get them to think

Hey, what did we do wrong? What did I do wrong? They deserve this judgment If as your you are experiencing judgment or a discipline we read about it in Psalm 118

You become aware that you are sinning that you aren't perfect become aware that you are incapable of Doing at least some of these commands and so you're convicted of sin

That's first Because the judgment or the discipline is having its desired effect

It's breaking down your confidence in yourself You're in your self -righteousness and second the

Holy Spirit is working in you to convict you the Lord Jesus said in John chapter 16 verse 8 that he is sending the

Holy Spirit to convict people Convict his lambs are scattered in other sheepfolds to convict them of sin of righteousness of judgment.

That is Bring to their minds that they are sinning And so they repent

Bring to their minds what God's righteous standards are So they see how far they've fallen short of them how much they failed and bring to their minds.

What are God's judgments ordinary sin? So they tremble at his word so we we require the

Holy Spirit to do that for us because by ourselves we are not capable of Knowing our sin of knowing what is right of knowing what sin will cost us

You know, that's why there are people who suffer for their sins. Sometimes they suffer over and over again

Maybe they go to jail for being a thief or they suffer miserably in their lives for their sexual immorality

And yet they never seem to learn That's because by themselves they aren't capable of knowing or doing right

The early church leader Augustine prayed Lord you command self -control Grant what you command and command what you will

And that became a model prayer kind of a popular model prayer in his day. You command self -control

Grant what you command and command what you will And please give us the self -control you command us to have and command whatever you want

If you want to if you will give us what you command will gladly do whatever it is

You command, but if you don't give us the ability to do your commands

We can't keep them we are in capable a

Monk from Britain named Pelagius was offended by that Thought that that's that's teaching people not to try

He claimed that they're using what you Augustine say is their inability to not even try to obey

You know, like I don't even try to be a good basketball player anymore I know I'm not capable So I kind of given up trying and they'll hear for a play just would say these people have given up trying not to sin

They'll say God has it granted me to keep that command. So I'm just gonna go ahead and sin Probably some people really did say something like that in his day.

They'll use Truth to enable their sin. They probably did use their inability as an excuse to continue in sin

But that's not evidence that Augusta wasn't right The person who commits adultery because he says that God didn't give him the ability to resist will still be held responsible for his adultery and Now he's added to that blasphemy by blaming

God for his for his sin. And so he'll be judged and in a sense he Kind of right in a certain way of looking at it.

He's committing adultery Because of who he is He is an adulterer

But that doesn't mean that he's free from judgment that he can't be held responsible for not obeying a command

That he couldn't keep it means that the command has shown him. What kind of person he is

He is an adulterer when the Lord Jesus finished Matthew 5 by telling us, you know be perfect He was showing us, you know in case we still had any

Self -confidence left from in our self -righteousness if in case we had any left over after he said that not only don't kill

Don't come in actual physical adultery that that's not good enough that if we just wanted to do it then we're still guilty

He was showing us that that we're not perfect because our heart isn't right that we're not

Capable that the heart of our problem is the problem of our heart

So Like here I can do Deuteronomy 30 You're under judgment scattered are in the world.

You're now being convicted by the Holy Spirit He's making you capable of seeing what you couldn't see before because you hadn't been given a new heart

They could understand we saw that at last week. Remember in chapter 29 verse 4 This is really 29 and 30 of one unit

But remember in chapter 29 verse 4 he said God has not given you a heart to understand

But now he's given you that new heart So first in verse 3 you repent you turn from your sin that before you wouldn't even admit was a sin

The Lord restores you he restores you to what you were meant to be at creation in harmony with him

He restores your fortunes some fortunes. He restores now and some he will restore

Not yet at the resurrection, but you know Even if even if you can't get some of the fortunes yet, you know

That I has not seen or you heard what God has in store for you since he's given you a heart

To love him. He has compassion on you. You are his people and so you love

Because he loved you first and he will gather you the Lord Jesus said about this age this age

We're still in he said in Matthew chapter 24 verse 31 That his from his first coming to a second coming that now this age he is sending out his messengers

Messengers of the gospel and he is gathering his people gathering his elect his chosen ones

He says from one end of heaven To the other from the whole creation.

That's what he is doing. Now. He is fulfilling verse 3 here in Deuteronomy 30

Gathering his people from the nations that they are scattered in Gathering his sheep from the many different sheepfolds that they are found in the different ethnic groups that they are now in Gathering them into one and verse 4 if your outcasts are

In the uttermost parts of the heaven Otherwise if they're all over the world They're in America or Singapore or Indonesia or China or Ethiopia He will send his messengers to tell you the gospel and he will gather you to his presence and Gather you to his blessings to himself and you'll be aware of your sin your need for his righteousness because you're not capable and you'll turn back to him because Because not because you by yourself are capable but because notice verse 6

Because in verse 6 he's given you a new heart He's taken care of the heart of the problem by taking care of the problem of the heart

He will he says in verse 6 circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring So he will give you the the mark of the

Covenant the sign that he's committed To love you that steadfast love that endures forever

That literal first mark of the Old Covenant was circumcision But here he is saying that he's he'll give you the true a spiritual mark of the

Covenant marking you off as his people The circumcision of the heart what

Jeremiah prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel say is the new heart Taking out the the old heart of stone that old dead heart that was

Incapable it lacked the ability to love God No matter how you how much you lashed it with God's Word you commanded it to obey

It still would disobey even if you made yourself obey God's rules in your heart

You still did not love that God but God takes out that heart It gives you a new heart taking out that and replacing it with the living heart of flesh that's now alive to God That loves

God that has his law written on your heart Notice verse 6 the

Lord your God will The Lord will give you this new mark of the

Covenant you didn't say you go out and do it Here's how now the Lord your God will do it

God does the work because we can't we lack the ability. We're not capable. He does it so that this is the purpose

You will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind

The only way we can love the Lord with all our heart Is if he gives us a new one and he does it at the end of verse 6 that the end goal

You may live He has commanded us to love him with all our heart and here promise for his people who are scattered around the world that he will grant what he commands and so now we say

Command what you will The mark of the new covenant is promised here in verse 6 the circumcision of the heart

Baptism is what those who have been given this spiritual mark this new heart then do

Baptism is not the sign of the new covenant the Bible nowhere Calls baptism the sign of the covenant

You will not find that anywhere Baptism is called the sign of the covenant and now in Colossians chapter 2 verses 11 and 12

The Apostle Paul says in him in Christ that's because of what he did for us in Christ you were talking to believers.

You were circumcised With a circumcision made without hands so that's the same circumcision as Mentioned here in verse 6 the sign of the new covenant and you were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by Paul says in Colossians chapter 2 verse 11 by that is the means of the instrument the way that this circumcision the heart is done by the circumcision of Christ the mark of the covenant that comes from Christ He doesn't say

Paul does not say by baptism as though baptism makes you part of the covenant

It's the sign of the covenant. No, but in Colossians chapter 2 verse 12 having been buried with him in Baptism sure such people are indeed baptized because God first gave them a new heart and that new heart wanted to obey him

And he commands them could be baptized and so they do Baptism is not the sign of the covenant the circumcision of the heart is

Baptism is the sign of The sign of the covenant the sign of having received a circumcision of the heart of having a new heart

So the Lord does what we are not capable of giving us a new heart then he gathers us together from all the peoples in the world and Then the curses of the

Covenant followed the world of our seven while we with these new hearts obey the Lord Because we have a heart to because we want to in verse 8 and he makes us abundantly prosperous at verse 9 some prosperity now

Some not yet. The Lord takes delight in prospering us. The Lord takes great pleasure in blessing us

Enriching us Healing us raising us from the dead giving us a new heaven and a new earth all the good things

He solves the heart of the problem the problem of our heart And so now we have ears to hear we have hearts to obey and live forever

Delighting the Lord by him Lavishing on us all those good things

But what are you capable of? Are you capable of? doing the work to get that blessing

Well in verses 11 to 14, we see that it's not something We're incapable of in verse 11

The Lord says this commandment as to love the Lord with all your heart keep his word.

He says it's it's not too hard for you As if you're capable of it neither is it far off It's not out of reach.

It's not beyond our our skill or ability. It's not wealth and space so that you know

We just can't get to it We don't we lack that ability. It's beyond our ladders beyond our lifts

Beyond our even our airplanes. It's not beyond the sea It's not like an Australia just too far off to go to we can't afford to go there

But the word he says that gives you this those blessings the word that you're called to do

It's near you It's right here. It's in your mouth You can say it.

It's in your heart So that you can do it You might think wait you just contradicted what you said you

You I thought you said that we're not capable of obeying and the you were saying that the law shows us what we can't do

What's going on? Well that depends on who the you is Who's the you here in verse 14?

Who is the you who has God's Word written on their heart? in the previous chapter 29 especially verse 4 remember he said that the

Lord had not given these people Some people a heart to understand you don't understand

Moses said you don't understand God's commands You don't love God's commands because God has not given you the heart to do

So you lack the ability but here They're circumcised in heart Now they have the ability he's given to some a circumcision of the heart so that the

Word of God is in their heart So they obey it they say it and they do the work

He tells them to do But what's the work? Well everything that God commands but at the heart of the commands the one command

That if we obey it will then obey all his other commands Is that what the

Lord Jesus said in John chapter 6 verse 29? this is the work of God that you believe in Him whom he has sent

The work is that you believe in Jesus now, are you capable of that?

No not unless From chapter 29 verse 4 it has been given to you unless here in verse 6

You've been given a new heart that the Lord has done the work he's done the work first of giving you the mark of the covenant of changing your heart so that Now from your heart which you maybe you were religious

Maybe you were disciplined you could make yourself do stuff, but you could never make yourself really love God But now he's given you a new heart that does indeed love

God If he's done that then yes, you do the work and you believe in Jesus if he has it done that Then you're not capable

You're not capable of believing in Jesus. Oh You can be religious.

You can repeat prayers you could get baptized But you're not doing it out of faith in Jesus.

You're not capable of faith. It's it's beyond you It's like being told jump to the moon you say

I can't it's beyond me but if he has changed your heart then in verse 11 suddenly

Suddenly, it's not hard at all But before was beyond you it's it's now easy.

It's not far off. It's right within reach The words are just naturally in your mouth

Jesus is Lord Because they're written on your heart

The Work you do you're commanded to do to believe in Jesus is is made easy.

It's as natural as breathing because of the work The Lord has done

What are you capable of? Are you capable of? the right choice

Now those last six verses beginning in verse 15 are are the climax of the whole book of Deuteronomy This is what he's been building toward through this whole book the

Lord says that he has set before us today life and good death and evil choose

I'll put like that you think well, that's pretty easy choice If you choose the right one you get life and good you choose the wrong one

You get death and evil. Of course, you think well, I'm gonna choose life and good. I'll go for that one

Thank you very much. But are you capable of it? Are you capable of? choosing life

Many people think well, of course, I'm capable. Are you talking about what's preventing me nothing stopping me?

it's not as though God is preventing me from from believing from choosing life and It's not as though something outside of us keeping us from making that choice that they they really want to follow

Jesus But he won't let us Some people though do think that Daniel Fuller was the son of the founder of Fuller seminary told about how he picked up a hitchhiker and He tried to share the gospel with him, but the hitchhiker said

Something like well, he I would like to believe in Jesus, but God won't let me and dr.

Fuller responded Yeah, if you'd really like to believe God is letting you if you want to follow

Jesus. That's because he gave you the heart to do so The heart of the problem is not

God or anything outside of us It's the problem of the heart well, here's

The choice that life or death you choose pick one

Now put it like that. Everyone is gonna say that they're choosing life But they don't

They don't have eyes to see What is life or what is death? They don't have ears to hear the explanation

They don't have a heart to understand it unless God first gives it to them

So in verse 16 if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today

If you do the work is to believe remember, but you can't believe unless God gives you a heart to believe

So then why does he command us to believe here? Why does he command us to obey? So that you'll know you can't to crush your confidence in yourself

Well, how do you obey here in verse 16 by loving the Lord your God now love by definition comes from the heart

It's all about what we cherish the most in our heart. We can't make ourselves love what we would don't love

We're commanded to love to walk in his ways to keep his commandments Unlike some who think that they can they can say they they love the

Lord They love God and then they'll ignore his commandments nor his commands for love Or for sex for their money for their church for doing whatever is convenient for them

Whatever the world puts pressure on them to do if we do Obey his commandments if we do what we were originally not capable of doing

But we do it now because the Lord first gives us a new heart if we do his commands Then he says he'll bless us and we'll live in his presence forever.

But if we don't If we do what comes naturally to us left to ourselves

With this heart that They can't understand and so our heart turns away from the

Lord in verse 17. So we don't hear his word We don't have ears to hear. Oh, we might take snippets of it.

We might even be religious We might take parts of his of his word of the Bible from here and there to justify ourselves but we're not really hearing the

Lord and Then we live for other things Seek first money or wealth or bigger houses luxury cars

More dollars instead of seeking first God's kingdom or whatever other God might appeal to us

Maybe appearing to be the woke sophisticate today You know supporting all the right causes because we want to we want to be an impressive kind of person if we're drawn to other gods then in verse 18

We've made the wrong choice we've chosen death and We'll get exactly what we choose

If you make the choice for another God, then you won't live in God's blessings so What do you choose

At the end and this is the conclusion to Moses's third Sermon in Deuteronomy the climax really of the entire book the

Lord calls witnesses to this choice in Verse 19 and this was the standard procedure for covenants in their days two men wanted to make a covenant they would call witnesses other men to attest to it a great

Emperor making a covenant with a Small kingdom would call the gods that they believed in to witness it and here the

Lord is the great king And since there are no other gods He calls heaven and earth the universe his own creation to witness to this covenant that he's making with his own people

Are they capable of keeping? this covenant Are you?

Heaven this universe earth Witness this covenant.

I've set before you he's talking to you life and death blessing and cursing therefore choose life

Choose life that you may live choose life that your children might live so they can hear the word from you

The invitation to choose and they can see the blessings of the covenant in your life choose life

There's the appeal the invitation Are you capable of?

Responding of saying yes, I choose life You choose life by in verse 20 loving the

Lord your God By obeying his voice you seek first the kingdom of God you believe in Jesus holding fast to him.

He says clinging to him Hold fast to the Lord I tell you choose life holding your money your things your goals to be somebody your reputation your own life

You hold all that loosely But while you hold on to him tightly

You can't hold fast to him. You're capable of that If he's holding fast to you

Do that because notice the middle verse 20 It's a great phrase notice the middle verse 20 choose life

Because He is your life Love the

Lord Because he's your life He's the one who will give you length of days

Eternal life a resurrection a new heaven in a new earth things.

So great. We can't even imagine Are you capable of making that choice of choosing the

Lord? Yes If the Lord has given you a new heart eyes to see

Ears to hear his invitation believe in Jesus choose life.

You can Do it choose Jesus the way the truth and the life

If he's put it in your heart, that's your choice life or death