Deuteronomy 3:23-28 The View From Afar

Welcome to Recast Church, where we're growing in faith, community, and service. You're listening to a message by Pastor Kyle Douglas from the Book of Deuteronomy, from a series entitled Clinging to God on the Way from Here to There.

If you'd like more information about Recast Church, check us out at recastchurch .com or you can find us on Facebook. Here's Pastor Kyle.

The Journey Group Testimony Video

Welcome to Recast, everybody.

Happy Labor Day.

We're going to get through a couple of the usual little tidbits here in the beginning and then we're going to watch a video. Hopefully, as you came in, you got a worship folder and feel free to read through that for announcements.

In that, you'll find a connection card. Fill out the connection card, especially write some prayer requests. You don't have to be a new person to fill out the connection card, but we love to connect with you over those kind of things.

And then hopefully all the parents of kids ages kindergarten through fifth grade got a letter that explains what is happening coming up in the fall for kids ministry. And then also today we're kind of given, it's Labor Day, right?

We're giving our volunteers a break so we got kids in the service. We're well aware of that. Don't worry, I'll be giving them all a quiz at the end so you can exhort them to pay attention, but it's going to be good.

We're glad to have them in here with us. Also, if it's your first time here at Recast, you're welcome to take a mug from the back just as a thank you for being around. And then if you have a gift or offering, we encourage you to do that as a way of thanking God for all the blessings that he's given you.

And you can put that in an envelope and drop the envelope in the black box. Connection cards also go there in the black box back there on that table. All right, let's go ahead and cue the video, guys.

So journey groups are a really safe place to take a look at some of the hurts or wounds that we've experienced in the past. My name is Mike Nelson, and when I was about four years old, I was sexually abused by a family member.

I was a recovering alcoholic, so that was something that I used to try to help numb my pain. I struggled with pornography, and really a lot of that has been trying to deny my emotions and just not express them, not know how to express them and not to express them.

My mother was very absent, and my father was distant as well, and so I grew up feeling really insignificant.

I think it's lagging behind. The audio is way off. Is it a... What's that? It's interpretive. That's right. All right, let's try and start it over, and maybe now that it's had a chance to catch.

Up.

Start things off. Thanks for your patience. We're going to play it a different way, and I think it'll play a lot better. Anybody have any vacation plans? I'm going to Holland today. Hopefully the rain stays away, and let's all agree we don't tell Don this happened, okay?

This is everything was A-okay. All right, let's try again.

Journey groups are a really safe place to take a look at some of the hurts or wounds that we've experienced in the past. My name is Mike Nelson, and when I was about four years old, I was sexually abused by a family member.

I'm a recovering alcoholic, so that was something that I used to try to help numb my pain. Struggled with pornography, and really a lot of that has been trying to deny my emotions and just not express them, not know how to express them and not to express them.

My mother was very absent, and my father was distant as well, and so I grew up feeling really insignificant. There's a term we, or a phrase we use in journey groups that we're wounded in relationship, and healing comes in relationship.

In journey groups, I've found that it's safe to be in a group with women who care about me, and I've been able to share intimate things with them and found love and acceptance in.

That group.

It's a 12-week course, and it's with the exception of one Saturday. It's on Thursday nights. There's an aspect that's a presentation where a lot of the co-leaders that are there will go over the material that's in the curriculum and teach that and tie their story into that somewhat, and then we'll break out into a small group, and a small group is really where the phenomena happens.

So it's a really safe place. Like I said, it's developed to be safe. It's led by people who've been through the journey and know how to make it a safe place so that you can feel comfortable.

It's scary to be authentic and to be real and to trust others, but as much as you're willing to lend your trust and trust God to be with you in this process, I believe He'll be faithful to you.

And if you picture a journey as driving across the United States, what journey, what our process allows, you can be the driver.

So hopefully the distraction of the video didn't take away from the message, but basically here at Recast, we try and keep things simple in terms of our programming. We have church on Sunday. We have small groups.

We provide some opportunities for people to serve, but then we try and identify other programs, and maybe those are programs at other churches or outside of our direct structure that help people grow in faith.

And we think that the journey group is one of those things. Don and I have been through it. Many other people have been through it here in our congregation, and it's just a great chance to, like Lois said, to really get authentic and talk about the things that are kind of driving you on the inside.

Groups start September 11th, like we mentioned. Mike and Lois are actually out visiting some family this weekend, but they're actually the leaders of the program, not just at Recast, but over the Centerpoint program, and they're a great resource so that you can talk to them about how to sign up, but you can see me today if you're interested in getting more information.

Louie Zamperini, Prayer, and Unanswered Requests

So we just wanted to make that known to you that that's an option for you here. On Thursday, May 27th of 1943, former Olympic runner Louie Zamperini and his fellow crew of World War II airmen boarded the Green Hornet, a particularly janky B -24 bomber.

It was known by the guys as a musher. I don't know what happened to this particular plane, but it would move through the air with its nose up and basically try and just sludge through the air so it was slow.

It had been pilfered by other crews for parts, so this thing was what we might affectionately call a piece. The crew has volunteered, and those of you in the military know what the air quotes are for, the crew has volunteered by their lieutenant to help conduct a search and rescue mission for another crew who had gone down over the shark-infested waters of the Pacific.

They were all nervous about having to fly in the Green Hornet, one of the only planes available that day for the mission. About halfway to the search point, their worst fears were realized when engine number one quit and started a series of events that resulted in the plane taking a downward spin and landing in the ocean.

Miraculously, Louie, the pilot Phil, and a poor guy named Mac who had volunteered to go on the plane just so that he could see live combat, bad day to bum a ride, survived. They ended up in two small inflatable canvas life rafts adrift at sea.

Out of the three men, only Phil and Louie would make it the full 47 days adrift at sea, drinking rainwater, catching and eating birds that would plop down in the raft, and even catching a couple of sharks that constantly harassed the withered men.

And not surprisingly, as these men fought for what seemed like a losing battle for their lives, they prayed. Phil was the son of a preacher, but prayer came really unnaturally to Louie. But several weeks out to sea with no water brought Louie to pray out loud to God for rain and rescue.

Author Laura Hillenbrand in her book Unbroken describes a scene like this. On the sixth day without water, the men recognized that they weren't going to last much longer. Mack was failing especially quickly.

They bowed their heads together as Louie prayed. If God would quench their thirst, he vowed, he'd dedicate his life to him. The next day, by divine intervention or the fickle humors of the tropics, she writes, the sky broke open and rain poured down.

Twice more the water ran out, twice more they prayed, and twice more the rain came. The showers gave them just enough water to last a short while longer. If only a plane would come. Well, a plane didn't come, but a ship did.

A Japanese ship. And the Japanese were not very kind to prisoners of war in World War II. And so began three years of continued starvation, hard labor, and torture that would cause Louie to say at one point, I wished I was back on the raft.

Have you ever been in a situation where you've prayed desperately for something only to have God answer it in a way that doesn't seem like a very good answer? Sometimes we call these unanswered prayers.

But someone has quipped that God always answers prayer, it's just sometimes with no. Think back on your life. What have been some of the big asks that you've had of God? And he's answered in a way that you weren't particularly fond of.

Was it a marriage that fell apart? Cancer? A job you really wanted? Maybe it was just something that you thought would be really nice to have. I mean, we all have those. We've got things that we'd like.

Or maybe you were like Louie, and somehow, maybe metaphorically, maybe not, you were out to sea and you needed God to intervene to save you. In our passage today, we have a situation involving an unanswered prayer like this with Moses.

I'm continuing my series in the book of Deuteronomy called Clinging to God on the Way from Here to There. And Moses is wrapping up the introduction to this magnum opus sermon that he's giving here at the end of his life.

The people have come through the wilderness. They're right at the Jordan River. The Promised Land is just on the other side. And Moses is about to say sayonara. And so he's giving this really elaborate speech to them to encourage them and equip them to go on without him.

And our passage this morning is right at the end and it's this window into this personal moment between Moses and God. Where we find Moses asking, the text actually says pleading with God for something that he really wants.

And God denies his request and gives him what seems like a lesser alternative. How encouraging, right? I don't know about some of you, but maybe you're like me and you already struggle with prayer. I'm a pastor.

And I'm admitting that I struggle with prayer. You struggle with the discipline of it. The usefulness sometimes of it. Feeling like it's an exercise in talking to the ceiling or communicating with a distant entity who's going to do whatever he wants to do anyway.

Anyone ever feel like that? You don't have to raise your hand. I wouldn't want you to admit that in church, right? So we might be tempted to ask if Moses, God's chosen leader, and a man who would talk with God face to face in the tent of meeting can't get his prayer answered, is there any hope for me?

Who am I? I'm not Moses. It is a good question. And I promise you I won't be giving you any special fixes for making sure that God answers your prayer this morning. I don't think that it was Moses made a mistake in how he prayed.

It was a great prayer. Moses was in a good relationship with God. It was just that there were other factors involved. And what I'm going to try and do this morning is share from the passage some of the reasons why I think God was just and right in not giving Moses what he asked for.

And strangely, and I love preaching, you know, because you do the study and then all of a sudden you're like, you're under conviction. I pray that you'll find the same thing that I found as I studied, that I was actually motivated to pray harder and stronger and with more perseverance and more honestly before God.

I pray that maybe after today, you will want to make more of your desires and requests known to God. So I'm calling this sermon, The View from Afar. And we'll be reading from Deuteronomy 3. Verses 23 -29.

I think it's found on page 128 in your Bibles. If you don't have a Bible with you and you'd like one, go ahead and raise your hand. And if we could have maybe a couple guys just hop up and grab a couple, so if you need one.

Moses Pleads for the Promised Land

Deuteronomy 3, starting at verse 23. And I pleaded with the Lord at that time, saying, O Lord God, You have only begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand. For what God is there in heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as Yours?

Please let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan, that good hill country and Lebanon. But the Lord was angry with me because of you and would not listen to me. And the Lord said to me, Enough from you.

Do not speak to me of this matter again. Go up to the top of Pisgah and lift your eyes westward and northward and southward and eastward and look at it with your eyes. For you shall not go over this Jordan.

But charge Joshua and encourage and strengthen him for he shall go over at the head of this people and he shall put them in possession of the land that you shall see. So we remained in the valley opposite of Beth Peor.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, we come to You this morning just acknowledging Your greatness, acknowledging Your goodness, and Your power over us and over the world. And God, we are so thankful that we even have the opportunity to address You in prayer.

We're so thankful that You're a God who's made Himself known to us, who wants to communicate with us, who wants to make Himself known, who even responds. And God, we confess, I think many of us, we do not take full advantage of this thing called prayer and getting to interact with You.

And maybe this is a hang-up that some of us have that we're afraid to even begin to talk with You, God, because maybe You'll say no. But I pray, Lord, that this morning that from Your Word, You would encourage us and inspire us and help us to see Your greatness better and that we would want to draw near to You, that we would want to be in Your presence, that we would desire to talk with You on a regular basis, God, knowing that You are good.

So as we come to worship God, I pray that it would be a prayer of sorts, that we'd lift up these words to You in thankfulness and praise of who You are and that You'd be pleased with it, Lord. It's in Christ's name that we pray.

Amen. As always, thanks to the band. I just really appreciate these guys and all that they do. They practice during the week and Josh spends a lot of hours getting things around and great musicians and just love you guys.

Alright, feel free to get your Bibles open and just kind of follow along. That's something we love to do here, show you that we're at least mostly not making this stuff up, but it's trying to come from the Word.

And then make yourself comfortable. If you need more coffee or donuts, feel free to get up and get those. Bathrooms for the adults are down this hallway towards the south of the building. Ladies downstairs, men upstairs, take care of bids.

I said that out loud. Sorry. Alright, so before we really dig in here, just a quick aside, that I'm choosing to focus on prayer in this passage. But I wouldn't say that Moses' primary goal here is to teach us about prayer.

That's not exactly what he was doing. Rather in the flow of this sermon that he's giving, he's setting up Joshua as his successor. So in terms of the nuts and bolts of what's happening in the flow of his thought, that is the primary passage.

But of course, like in most Scriptures, you have an episode of something and as you observe it from kind of a distance, you learn things about what's happening. You learn things about God. You learn things about ourselves,.

Prayer,.

The situations that are happening. Just to make that clear as we begin. To give us a road map of what I'd like to do with this sermon, first, we'll talk about the fact that we are to pray. That it's something that we are called to do.

It should be a part of our Christian lives. And Moses is a good model for us in that regard. So we'll ask, what does it look like to do what Moses did here in this passage? But then secondly, we'll look at the fact that sometimes God says no to our prayers like we already discussed.

And we'll look at some of the reasons that He may have for that answer. And then we'll end with a little chat about why our faith in God ought to be strengthened when He decides to only grant us a view from afar.

So those are kind of the three parts that we'll be dealing with. So we are to pray. What is prayer anyway? Some of you, you know the old Christians saved at three and been here a long time. Feel free to work on your grocery list or check Facebook right now.

But some of us may struggle with what is even prayer?

We say that word.

What do we mean by that? Is it like a nursery rhyme that kids say before they go to bed? Is it a liturgy that we recite over the casserole at dinner? O Thou Great Father, please remove these evil brussel sprouts from this Thine holy dinner table and forgive Mom for burning it again.

Is that all prayer is? Something we say before meals? Is it something that we use our still, small voice to talk to God about landscaping? Dear Lord, just put a hedge of protection around all these things that I got.

Is it the silence that football players use before they go into a game? Can you write it?

Can you sing it?

It might seem simple when I ask you what is prayer, but then it can get kind of complicated, especially if you're new to this Christian thing. So let's just kind of go back to the basics and define prayer like this.

Prayer is simply communication with God.

Period.

Prayer is communication with God. Anything that you somehow intentionally send to God that carries a message is a prayer. And yeah, sometimes it looks like a graduation speech. Sometimes it's the grunts and groans that sneak out through the tears and the snot.

Sometimes it's set to music and sometimes it's an unmelodious rant. Prayer is simply communicating with God. And Moses was a guy who did a lot of it. What Scripture records of his prayer life was that it wasn't a thing that he just did as a religious duty, but it was a lifestyle for him.

And by that I mean it was regular and it was honest and it was passionate. We're talking about a man that in Exodus 33, verse 11, is recorded as being someone who would talk to God regularly, face to face, as a man talks to a friend.

Isn't that incredible? This was a guy who talked with God face to face. And think if you can, if you know some of the stories that involve Moses talking with God. What happened at the burning bush? Mount Horeb.

We're in the wilderness with the people complaining about hunger and thirst.

The Exodus.

Some of the battles, right? We see him afraid. We see him anxious. We see him full of self-doubt. We see him angry, compassionate, at times pleading for God not to destroy the people. Now yeah, Moses was really unique.

Not many of us will get out up from our prayer time with a glowing face. But we should be passionate and persistent in our prayers.

Right?

Don just blogged about the fiddler on the roof, so I figured I'd better watch it. I'd never seen it. Who's seen Fiddler on the Roof? Anybody? Okay, kind of know what I'm talking about. There were some things about it that Don didn't really like, but as I was watching it, one of the favorite parts of the movie to me, it's a musical, but watch the movie, was how Rev Tevye talked to God.

It was open. It was funny. Sometimes angry. Sometimes sarcastic. But it was personal and a part of his daily routine. And I thought that's kind of how I want to be more like that. I mean, I pray a lot.

I have times of scheduled prayer. Most of my day involves some kind of thought about God or what I should be doing. But there's something about literally conversing with the Lord.

That's so good.

And it should be more than just this duty, this religious duty that we check off daily or weekly or monthly. So we know this about Moses that he was a man of prayer, but look at verse 23. This is obviously kind of a special prayer for Moses.

It says that he pleaded with the Lord at that time. The word pleaded is rooted in the Hebrew word for showing favor or grace. So he's asking God to throw him a bone. And not just a casual, you know, hey God, if you get around to it, if you've got the time, I'd really love to go see the Promised Land, but hey, don't worry about it.

I know you're busy. It's not that kind of a pleading. It's like a please,.

Oh please, oh please,.

Oh please let me do this kind of pleading. Any of you who have had a 2 to 12 year old person in your homes know what I'm talking about, right? If you're under 12, raise your hand.

Okay.

Your parents all need an illustration about prayer, so I want you to keep begging for the stuff that you want when you get home, okay? You tell them Pastor Kyle told you to do that. My daughter, Evie, I actually asked her to come up and demonstrate this for me, but we decided not to, so I'll just explain it.

But sometimes at night, we try and read every night to our girls, sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't, but usually one story is not enough. And the evening usually ends with me trying to get out, away from the bed, out of the room, and her like holding on to me,.

Begging, no, please. One more story,.

Don't go daddy,.

Please one more,.

One more,.

One more, one more.

That's the kind of pleading that we're seeing Moses participating in or giving to God here. He really, really wanted this. I don't think that all of our prayers have to be this super passionate, but I wonder how strong our faith is or how seriously we're taking God if we don't find ourselves begging Him for something from time to time.

Why wouldn't we? Because we think He doesn't care? Do we not think He's strong enough or He can't hear us? Or would we rather just use our own super powers to get stuff done? But also in His pleading.

He reveals to us.

His motivation. And I think if we're going to pray like Moses, this is really interesting.

And informative.

It might even be surprising to some of us. Look what He does here. He precedes His direct request, which is coming in verse 25, with a couple of lines of support to inform God why He's even asking for this.

Which I think can be broken into two parts. His wants and God's glory. So what He wants to have happen,.

Personally,.

And God's glory. Regarding His wants, He doesn't want to miss out.

On the show.

He's seen enough to know that God is awesome. That God does awesome things. And He truly believed the best was yet to come. Ten plagues. Warm up. Walking across an underwater land bridge while the Spirit of God puts up an invisible force field on the side to keep the water out.

Pre-game.

Right?

Breakfast served fresh every day for 40 years.

Just getting started, baby.

Think of what Moses saw.

Think of what he got.

To have a front row view of.

God's majestic power.

And holiness. Incredible manifestations of His awesomeness.

And His power.

And His glory. And he wanted to keep going. He wanted to see more. See, Moses knew that when God is with His people, epic things will happen. It may have been a selfish request on his part. But can you blame Him?

And then the second part. He doesn't just want to see these things. He wants to give God all the glory He deserves for the great things He'll do. What great God is there like You, O Lord? He wants to worship a God who can do these kind of things that manifests Himself in His righteousness.

So His motivation for pleading with God is personal. And it's to witness God's greatness. A few points of application here. Number one, I think that we should always be honest with God regarding what we want.

We should always be honest with God regarding what we want. Do you know it's okay to be a little bit selfish in your prayers? It's okay to benefit from God's goodness and to ask for it. And I would rather have you praying honestly to God than not at all.

You want a Corvette? Or a pop-up camper? May have just gotten one of those. Or the Lions to win the Super Bowl? Yeah!

Great!

Pray for it.

Ask God for it.

Ask God to give you those things. Give Him all the reasons you deserve them. And I'm not saying that sarcastically either. I'm being serious. You've got to start somewhere. And if you don't start with what you want, with what's really in your heart, then I think prayer is just always this dry exercise that you try and get over as soon as you can.

But secondly, second point of application on this. Here's what I think that we'll find if we're truly filled with the Spirit and in love with God and desire in an intimate relationship with Him,.

We will experience.

An unavoidable transformation in our desires. Which means that we will want less of the things of this world and more of the experience of God's presence. I think this is where Moses had matured to. Yeah, his request might have been a little bit selfish, but it's honest.

And he had come to a point where what he wanted most was to see God work. That's what he wanted most was to see God work. Why do you pray? And are you feeling the transformation in your own heart? Are you growing hungry for God's presence?

For His work? I think if you start praying to Him honestly, you might begin to experience it. But now the twist. You've got Moses, who's a man of regular, passionate, persistent prayer, who is only asking to be able to see God.

Reveal His glory.

In the promised land. That sounds pretty good, right? I mean, that's pretty good prayer. And he gets told, no, in fact, I love how God says it. He says, enough from you! Quit bugging me, man! God actually sounds kind of annoyed.

Like me on vacation in a gas station with my kids. No, you can't have another beef stick. We're only getting gas. God sometimes says no. And before I get any further, let me remind us that God does not need to give any reasons for His no.

He has no need to explain Himself to us. That was one of my dad's favorite replies when he told us to do something. But why, dad?

Because I said so.

Right? Any dads use that one? It's a good one. He is God, supreme ruler of the universe, and He answers to no man. But, He is also merciful and He wants us to know Him. So I think we can surmise some reasons from His Word that may help us from getting bitter towards Him or losing trust in Him when He does tell us no.

So we're going to look at three things, three reasons why I think God may have been telling Moses no here. And they might apply to our situation, even though every situation is unique.

The Consequences of Moses' Sin

First,.

Despite our pleading, God does not always see fit to remove the practical consequences of our sin, even if the spiritual ones have been taken care of. Did you catch that? Despite our pleading, God does not always see fit to remove the practical consequences of our sin, even if the spiritual ones have been taken care of.

Moses was being denied entry into the promised land primarily as a consequence of his sin. Let's read it. From Numbers 20. And you kids that are in here,.

All you kids,.

I said I was going to quiz you, right? I need your help with this. I'm going to read a section out of Numbers 20. And I want you to tell me what Moses did wrong. So you've got to listen carefully because you might miss it.

I want you to tell me what Moses did wrong in Numbers 20. We'll start at verse 2. Now there was no water for the congregation. So they're out in the wilderness. They're walking around. A million people.

Sheep, goats, cattle. Lots of stuff. You need some water, right? Not little water bottles. You need like streams. And they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people quarreled with Moses and said, would that we had perished when our brothers perished.

Before the Lord.

Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness that we should die here, both we and our cattle? And why have you made us come out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It's no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates and there's no water to drink.

And Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces. What are they doing? They're praying. And the glory of the Lord appeared to them and the Lord spoke to Moses.

Saying,.

Take the staff and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron, your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.

And Moses took the staff from before the Lord as he commanded him. Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock and he said to them, Hear now you rebels! Shall we bring water for you out of this rock?

And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice. And the water came out abundantly and the congregation drank and their livestock. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Because you do not believe in me to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.

These are the waters of Meribah where the people of Israel quarreled with God, with the Lord, and through them he showed himself holy. So what did Moses do wrong? What do you think? Right back there. So he didn't trust in God and that's right.

And why didn't he trust in God? What did he do differently than what God wanted him to do? What do you think, Grace? He hit the rock twice. Now before,.

There was another episode where the people needed water.

God told him to strike the rock with his staff and he did it and it was fine. So why the problem this time? What did he tell him to do to the rock? What do you think? Oh, nice and loud.

What?

He sinned.

That's right.

He did.

Good answer. What was he supposed to do to the rock? Come on kids, pastor's kids. What do you think? He wasn't supposed to tap it once. In the back.

What?

Tell the rock. He said this time I want you to speak to the rock. And the water would come out. Well, Moses gets a little high and mighty. You rebels. You want us to bring water out of this rock for you?

And rather than obey God, he elevated himself in front of the people. And God said, you didn't believe me. If you had believed me, you would have done exactly.

What I told you to do.

But instead, you dishonored me. Interesting that God still granted the request for the people. But now who's going to suffer the consequences of the sin? Moses. And it's kind of a big deal. Just a little nugget here.

It's a big deal when leaders sin. The Bible tells us that not many of us should aspire to be leaders because we'll be judged more severely. When you're in front of the people meant to be giving an example and showing them what it's like to be obedient, we better do our job.

So, for us to make sense of this, this consequence that Moses received, that he was now not allowed to go into the promised land, we have to distinguish between God's discipline and His wrath. God disciplines those He loves.