Landmines in a Promised Land - Holy Living in a Hostile World

So um something you've been thinking about a lot today, I know, is snow Why? And I want to I just want to talk to you about snowmen. Yeah, it it's not too long. Before we'll be uh yeah, we'll be building snowmen. Uh that's out of my place, and um uh the one in the middle is not family Th the the rest are are some of us. Really cool. I mean uh you know you got you got your button nose and your eyes uh coal whatever that and hat this is a a day or two later he's not looking a little less uh chubby and then a few days later there there there he was he started out so well but it got the heat got to him and as it warmed up you know Um snowman turned slowly to mushman. And then no man whatsoever. Interestingly enough. That pretty well describes the process to many people who should be doing holy living in a hostile world. Because there's a lot of heat coming from around us. A lot of heat. And you know what it does? Starts to slowly melt you away. And maybe you become mush spiritually. With the um what I call the promised landers. The Jewish people going into the promised land. They were surrounded by a lot of good stuff. We heard about we read about all the great blessings and and the things they were going to walk right into. But they also are were surrounded by a culture full of garbage. Hi, we're the could the that's us We're surrounded by a lot of goodness here today, for example. Same time, surrounded by a whole lot of garbage Here's the challenge. It's a good thing to have your boat in the water. That's the boat doing what boats are supposed to do. What's not a good idea is water in the boat So hopefully your boat is in the water of a world that needs your Jesus. The question is, is there any water getting in the boat Um Blake, come on up here for a minute, will you? This is embarrassing. Either you have to sit down or I have to stand on this. Okay? This is not working. Hello, Blake. He must increase. I must decrease. Here we go. Thank you. So Blake, I'll tell you what I want for Christmas. So you can tell that Rick brought the tall gene into our family. Blake, what I just said about the water and the boat and the boat and the water and all that and and kind of the heat being honest and melting us down in terms of some of our Christianness. You've been to an Ivy League school where you were pretty lonesome believing what you believe. You didn't melt. Um the water didn't get in the boat. Give us real quickly How did that happen? How did you manage to be in that heat and not melt? Testing. Oh, it's on. Uh so how did I manage to stay in the heat? I think uh there are many struggles at a place like Dartmouth, uh many ways the culture tries to drag you down Uh one that I know that uh I found it easy to resist was uh the idea that Christians are not smart, uh the idea that Christians do not think. And The way that uh I was able to hold on to my faith, I was never convinced that uh the Bible was not justified, that it was a book of lies, that it was outdated. It is by simply turning to Christians in the past, reading books in the past. And it if you look deep, if you simply go through all your classes, but look for Where is God? Where have Christians made contributions to what I'm learning? You realize that Christian contributions to science and philosophy and mathematics are all over the place. This isn't commonly preached, but most of the greatest philosophers, not some of, but most of the greatest philosophers were Christian. And not just like I'm a philosopher, I'm also Christian, but I'm kind of caddish about it. No, they were devout, and they write very explicitly, my goal of writing this philosophy is to glorify God. Similarly, with some scientists, one of my favorite examples is the example of Kepler. He uh uh this was the man who published Three Laws of Planetary Motion. We're all uh aware of those. We we don't need to review those and yeah. Right. His ultimate suspicion for thinking that there were laws that you could attach mathematics to the motion of the planet Was simply that God was a God of order and he laid out the universe with principles of order. And and it was this, his Christian faith, that caused him to take the jump And be a scientist and look for these laws and try to match the numbers to the laws. It was the Christianity that got him started. Everything else was just Fitting the numbers. That's great on the intellectual side. There's also the side of lifestyle. And everybody goes there and says, I'm gonna little sample a little of everything. I'm free. How do you handle not caving on that? Yet again, look closely, you'll realize there's brokenness. They're not happy. They're very depressed with their lives. They drink And when it's late in the night and you ask them, is it worth it? They'll say no. Interesting. All right. Well, I just thought you had an example for us of a very tough environment to take a stand. Before you go, I'm going to ask you one more question. You decided? In Dartmouth grad, you know, there are most of your class, you graduated with honors, and most of them, you know, they're about making money Obviously you are too because you decided to work with Jordan in how to life. Wait a minute. What? What in the world? Why are you doing that instead of following the the path that Dartmouth grads followed? Well, I'm passionate about my generation. I want to reach my generation for Jesus. We're very lost. We're very broken. And people are looking for the solution to that brokenness in the wrong places, but the only solution is the gospel. Awesome Well let's hear it from Blake. Oh no, I only got one. Thank you, Blake. Okay, look down here now. Just readjust your sights. There you go. I'm down here now. Um I'll tell you what, we all face it's that whether you don't have to go to an Ivan League school to feel the pressure to compromise. Here is it in you see Philippians 2, 15 and 16 in your notes, we have a very vivid description of the days in which we're living and our assignment in them. This is really relevant. Well it's all relevant, but listen to this. Become blameless and pure, children of God, without fault, but here's where I've got to do it, in a warped and crooked generation. Little Greek lesson here. The Greek word for warped is scolus, S-K-O-L-I-O-S. What condition do we get from that? Scoliosis. That's exactly where we get the word scoliosis. It means warped. Okay? So uh in a warped and and twisted is the other word, a warped, does it feel that way? Everything's just getting twisted and warped generation. But what do you do? You will shine. Among them, like stars in the sky, as you hold firmly to the word of life. I ain't moving. I will hold firmly to the word of life in spite of all that surrounds me. Pretty good description of our day. So as the children of God, we are here to be the light in the night. You can't do anything about the night. Don't shake your head and say, oh, it's getting so bad. Wear the light in the night. Concentrate on being the light. Don't concentrate on the night. We had a young Navajo gal that was working in our office in New Jersey for a while, and she's from a you know the a desert area on the Navajo Reservation. And one night she went out after she had not been there very many days and she was walking around and I said, what are you thinking? She said, where are the stars? We had a lot of lights, but they were in the New York area, but not she said, where are the stars? I wonder if God's asking that. Those stars in this dark universe. He's like, where are the where are my bright lights? Where are my stars? We're going to get some exercise tonight, you'll be glad to know, very shortly. You know we do that with Bible verses. We are to live like we are who God says we are. We are to live like we are the person God says we are. Let's review Deuteronomy chapter 14. You are the children of the Lord your God, for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. This is who you are. I don't care what names you've been called, I don't care how you've been treated, I don't care what other people call you, you are not your job, you are not you're even being a parent, you are God's guy, God's girl, out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured possession. You are treasure to him. We live that out. You live like his treasure. You live like you are his chosen one. You live like you are a people holy to the Lord. And you will be increasingly lonely. Even a church. Because there aren't going to be a lot of people who are going to want to stand still while everything else is moving around them I know C. S. Lewis said it, and it goes something like this. He said if you If everybody is running toward the cliff and you are running the other direction, you like to look like the one who's crazy. Except they're all going over the cliff And you will be the one that's safe. And it is true. It's going to get tougher to really hold the line Because we'll be in a smaller and smaller group, even of believers. So what are we gonna do? We're gonna you're gonna do this. Okay, whenever I say the word stand I'd like you to do that. And then you can sit down. Unless I say the word stand again. In which case. I'd like you to stand again. You ready? So let me give you uh no not yet. No, I didn't say that well I did say stand. Oh boy. So Let me let me let me do this from Ephesians chapter 6, okay? Where it says, put on the full armor of God, so you can take your stand Thank you. Against the devil's schemes. And when the day of evil oh put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you will be able to stand. Thank you. Your ground. And after everything, to stand. You got the point sit down. Okay, you got it. In fact, when we're doing it with the OEW team, it'd stand like that. I should have had you stomp too. Then we'd be doing it OEW style. So that's what he's saying. When the day of evil comes, you say, isn't it evil every day? No, the day of evil is like bombardment from all sides. When the day of evil comes Take your stand. And after you've done everything, I've done everything I could do, stand some more. Pretty clear what we're supposed to do. So holy living in a hostile world. is a challenge that can only be met by heaven's victory plan. And it's revealed in Deuteronomy in just four words. And we had four words last night. The Lord your God. We have four more tonight. And here's what it is. It is repeated, by the way, over and over and over again in the book. Carefully follow Fully obey. Carefully follow. Now all these words are important. Fully obey. We go to Deuteronomy 28. Here's how they were commanded to live. If you fully obey the Lord your God. and carefully follow all his commands I give you today. The Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God. The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season, and to bless all the- bless all the work of your hands, everything you do, you will lend to many nations, but will borrow from none. The Lord will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the Lord your God that I give you this day, And carefully, here we go again, follow them. You will always be at the top, never at the bottom. Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or the left, following other gods and serving them. So you see, and by the way, this is I haven't begun to give you all the verses that this is in. In fact, that word carefully or careful appears 59 times in the book of Deuteronomy. Notice I've been picking on the things in the book that are I just keep getting said. I figure that's God's like this I really want you to get. So he says it And by the way, that word is used 431 times in the Old Testament. Now, unfortunately Here's the way we might like to write the verse. If you casually follow, that's what most do. They follow the Lord casually. He says, carefully. I'm going to take that word apart in a minute. Carefully follow. That word's really important. He says, fully obey. Well, no, no, no. I have an idea. How about selectively obey? Because this one's hard. This one's going to cost me. This one is inconvenient truth. This one reflects on somebody I love. Maybe how about selectively obey? Fully obey. Carefully follow. Fully obey, carefully follow. Let me give you a Greek lesson. No, not Greek. Let me give you a Hebrew lesson. The word is Shamar. This is the one that's over and over in the Bible. And it means to protect, to defend. This is how you're supposed to follow. Carefully follow. Defending. Protecting, guarding, keeping watch. But the root word is a shepherd's word. It means to hedge with thorns. Put a fence of thorns around your sheep. Nobody's going to get in if they're protected by thorns. The key word, the key root word grammatically, is thorns. What's it saying? Fiercely defend the way you follow him. This is like build a hedge of thorns around your life in Christ. Not to become not to become judgmental, not to become uh you know somebody who nobody would even want to get close to. But as far as you're compromising the righteous way to do things, if you're the last one, the Gallup poll says 99. 9% Believe this or doing this. You say, oh not me. There's one left. That's Shamar. Deuteronomy 26. 16 The Lord your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and laws carefully, thorns. Observe them with all your heart and with all your soul. Casual faith. in a corrupt and compelling culture equals a crash. Casual faith And the longer you've been a Christian, the easier it is to fall into going through the motions. It's a casual, it's not a vigilant faith. It's a casual faith. And then and with the heat on, like there is now, that equals a crash. Because casual faith is no match for shameless sin. Now, what's at stake in being vigilant like this? How important is it? Well, we're going to do this real quick. First of all, it affects the outcome of the battle you're in. Look at this. If you carefully observe, here we go again. God really is emphasizing is if you carefully observe all these commands I'm giving you to love the Lord your God, walk in obedience and hold fast to him, then the Lord will drive out. See, you're gonna win your battle If you carefully observe, carefully follow. He will drive out all these nations before you. Your enemy will lose to you. Deuteronomy 15. Your material welfare is at stake. And whether you carefully follow and fully obey. There need be no poor people among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess, He will richly bless you if you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I'm giving you today. For the Lord your God will bless you as he has promised. You lend to many nations, borrow from none, you rule over many nations, but none will rule over you. He is saying here that your material blessing will depend. On whether you carefully follow and fully obey. It affects our children. Deuteronomy 32. Look. When Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel, he said to them, Take to heart all the words I've solemnly declared to you this day, so you may command your children. to obey carefully all the words of this law. This has generational implications. These are not just idle words for you. They're your life By them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. Our battles, our material welfare, our children, God's blessing, Deuteronomy 7. Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees, and laws I give you today. If you pay attention to these laws and are careful, there it is again, to follow them. Then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love with you as he swore to your ancestors. He will love you, he will bless you, he will increase your numbers, bless the fruit of your womb. The crops of your land, your grain, new wine and olive oil, the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land that he swore on your ancestors to give you. You will be blessed. more than any other people. And it's all about carefully follow. Fully obey. What are the four words? And and fully obey. Now, let's dig into that a little bit. Um it won't be the water of the Jordan River that separates them from getting in. It won't be the walls of Jericho It will not be the wars that will cost them the promised land. None of those will cost them. The walls of Jericho will come down. The waters will part to get through the river. They will win their battles. You know what will defeat them? Winsome wickedness. Wickedness that looks increasingly nicely packaged. Um there's a restaurant some of you may have been to in Branson, McFarland's. I don't know if the food's anything exceptional, but there is an unusual experience there. There is one table Kind of in the center of the restaurant that slowly ascends. Imperceptibly. And everybody who knows that loves to go there and just watch The people at that table. It's kind of where you take your friends you don't like. And um and so, I mean, they're sitting there and they got they got their food. Slowly coming up. And it's so funny, they don't notice it. And it's here we go. You know, it's past your chin and then your other chin. Um and you know and it just keeps I mean I don't even know how high it goes, but it's really funny. It really is hilarious to I mean uh you know, forget your food You go there for the show of watching watching people just slowly disappear and this this the the um Gradual overtaking of the person by their table. It's just hilarious. Now you're going to go there. There you go. Tell them I sent you. And I thought that's exactly how it works. in the devil strategy. Because he wants your gradual Decay to be imperceptible. It doesn't happen fast. It just happens steadily. Here's three ways to carefully follow. Why would I just give you the should if I don't give you the how? Here are three ways to carefully follow in a moral mindfield. Number one, stop any drift. Jesus said, all of us have wandered away like sheep. The way I understand it, sheep don't run away from the shepherd. They don't go, he's not looking. They don't run away. They wander away. It's like, ooh, that grass looks good. That's good stuff. Oh, look at the little pretty flower. That's really nice. See if that taste. I wonder what's over that hill. And all of a sudden they're like, where did the shepherd go? The shepherd didn't go anywhere. Just a little bit of time. He wandered. And then you're lost. You're like, where'd the shepherd go? Here's the definition of drift. It is a gradual deviation from an original course. A gradual deviation from an original course. Not sudden, not major, just little compromises So our enemy does not usually win by explosion. He doesn't come up and say, hi, I really would like to ruin your life. Would you follow me? He doesn't do it by explosion. He does it by erosion. His strategy is erosion. Wears you down, numbs you. And you don't even know that you're drifting James 1. 15 says this. After desire has conceived, okay, desire is going to have a baby. But after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. Doesn't start as a sin. Starts as a a want-to, not a do. Starts as a want-to. When it is full grown, it gives birth. To death. Sin always kills. Kills your reputation. Kills people's trust in you. Kills your sense of self-worth. Kills your closeness to God. First it fascinates you, then it assassinates you. But it starts out very simply as almost imperceptible desire. Now here's the problem. When they went into the promised land, they were surrounded by what I call seductive magnets, just like you are. There are magnets pulling on all of us, and they're they're pretty seductive because they're just everywhere. Deuteronomy chapter 4 verses 19 and 20 shows us what one of those magnets is. It's the culture around them itself. When you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon, the stars, all the heavenly array, don't be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping them. Now everybody around them was. But worshiping things the Lord your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. But as for you, the Lord took you and brought you out of the iron smelting furnace, out of Egypt to be the people of his inheritance as you are now. So he says, don't be seduced by the gods of the culture around you. You say, well I I really don't plan it. I have no little statues in my closet. I don't burn incense. Nope, that's now John Calvin put it this way. The human heart. Is a non-stop idol making factory. It continues to make idols Why does you ever notice how 1 John ends? I mean, you know, Paul writes letters, says, say hi to so-and-so, so-and-so, I say hi to you, the grace be with you, and so on. John is writing all this love, you know, and God's love for us and our love for each other. And then he says, oh, and little children, keep yourselves from idols. You're like, what's the next verse? There is no next verse. He just, that's the last thing he says. Keep yourself surrounded. That's strange. Except he knows that that's what's going to ruin everything else he just told them. The idols. Let me show you something I bet you've never seen. Psalm 139, you know these verses. Where do you see what the Hebrew means? Search me, O God. Know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. You know that. See if there's any offensive way in me. And lead me in the way everlasting. Look it up in the Hebrew. And you will find this meaning of the words offensive way. Idols. See if there be any idol in me. So when we're asking God to search us, we're not just looking for offensive ways We're saying, God, is there any anything I've let become an idol in my life? I've got a definition of an idol. It's any competition for your attention and your heart that distracts you from God. Any competition for your attention and your heart Let me give you examples. In our country right now, today, politics can become an idol. Competition for our attention and our heart. Entertainment can. We just are so caught up in our entertainment and our Netflix and streaming and We just, God's gotten lost in there somewhere. Your toys. Just our adult toys. can themselves become competition for your attention and your heart. Your phone can be. Your ministry can be an idol Your career can be an idol. Your children can be an idol. Good things can be idols All those can be some of the idols of the culture. Their priorities If the priorities of our culture become the priorities we really make important, let's become an idol. Their definition of success. Have you adopted their definition, the culture's definition of success? Really? That's an idol. Stop the drift. Another thing that can can be one of those seductive idols, seductive magnets is compromise. Deuteronomy 7, 3 and 4. Do not intermarry with them. Here's relationships. Do not give your daughters to their sons. Take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your children away. From following me to serve other gods and the Lord's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. That's compromise. Compromise. Use compromise. Just a little lie. Just to get out of this situation. Just to get to get the next step. Just a little lie. Just a little flirtation. Just a little flirtation. Just a little click. On the internet. Just a little click Just a little pride. You know what? I'm doing pretty good here. Just a little bitterness. Just a little unforgiveness. You know what you've done? You've left a window or a door unlocked. And Ephesians 4 says, do not give the devil a foothold. You cannot afford to have a window or a door that the thief from hell can come in to your life through. Believe me, he will and go deeper and farther than you ever imagined. Compromise. Here's one you wouldn't think about. Coldness. Yeah, just just your heart getting cold. Nobody has expressed it more poetically than Ruth Graham. Here's what she said. When gray inertia, that's listening, gray inertia creeps through your soul as though a man who fights the cold Then growing languid slumberts. That's a description of freezing to death, right? That you don't even know you are. As though a man who fights the cold, then growing languid slumbers, and slumbering knows not. It is death. That's this. Just this. Jesus said, because of the increase of wickedness, most of his people, their love would grow cold. It is that numbness That coldness, once your heart was warm toward Jesus, and you haven't left him, you haven't done anything gross, your heart just it's cold. That coldness is a seductive magnet to pull you away. That's some of the drifting I'm talking about. You don't like where that goes. One other thing is comfort. Yeah, comfort. Comfort is some of the drift. Deuteronomy 8. When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he's given you. Okay, we're good so far. Be careful, here we go, thorns. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God failing to observe his commands and laws and decrees that I'm giving you this day. Otherwise when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down We're getting comfy now, huh? And when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, and your heart will become proud. And you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt. Success and comfort can be, feel like your greatest blessing and be your greatest enemy. Because it'll make you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You may say to yourself, you know, my power And the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me. But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth. And so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today. Let me tell you what I mean by this comfort thing. Most of us will obey Jesus. I drew a little thing on the board for our students. And I said, here's an arrow, and we will obey Jesus this far. This is what I call the comfort line. And at the point where I am going to have to sacrifice where I feel safe and comfortable That's how far I obey. Fully obey. No boundary. No matter how geographically uncomfortable it is, financially, socially uncomfortable it is, I can't let the comfort line stop my obedience. Fully Obey. And there are many, and I will tell you this, if you make staying in your comfort zone a bottom line in your life, you will surely miss the will of God. For he never lets us stay permanently in our comfort zone. Stop the drift. Proverbs 4. 23 gives great advice. Guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Now, after we talked about stopping the drift, you've got to remember the reasons for being vigilant. I'm going to do this real quick. Those people who are watching you Deuteronomy 4 talks about decrees and laws, follow them in the land. Let's go on to the next verse. Observe them, for this will show your wisdom and understanding. You're being watched to the nations. Who will hear about all these decrees and say, surely this is a great nation and a wise and understanding people? What other nation is so great? If they watch you obeying me, They're gonna go, there's something special about this group of people. When um Doug was, I think, 15 My driving improved. Yeah, because he was gonna be getting his license. Yeah. And I realized he was in the back seat watching me like a hawk Like, oh, no California roll. No. Got too fully stop. Ooooo the five, ten over, mmm, I don't know. Because I realized I was being watched Change my behavior. Should change yours. You are being watched. That's a reason to fully obey and carefully follow. Because you're taking other people with you where you're going. You drift. They'll follow you. Secondly, a reason for vigilance is forgetting. Deuteronomy over and over again says, remember, remember, remember. And we forget, and I'll go over some of the things we forget in just a minute. One other reason for vigilance is to remain blessable. Deuteronomy 6, 24. Lord command us to obey all these things so we might always prosper and be kept alive. as is the case today. And if we here we go, if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, all As he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness. Let's put it this way. Passive purity will not be enough. This is active righteousness. This is aggressive righteousness. Just ask King David. Just a carelessness. Did he set out to seduce a loyal soldier's wife? He simply was his job before God was to be at war with his troops. He just took a spiritual day off, that's all That's all. And by the next morning, his life was scarred for the rest of his life and his whole family. There will always be a Bathsheba if you're taking a spiritual day off. For some of us, it's a more than a day off. Our time with Jesus is atrophied. Our being in his word is come and go. That's not carefully following. And we are so vulnerable to what happens. What's the opposite of careful? Just careless. So um let's let's let's get down to a bottom line here the recipe for victory Stick with the recipe for victory. And and let me just let me just tell you a a a way that that it will really help. Any of you have been through our office very much See these hanging up everywhere. These are the twelve core values of RHM. They are not honorary. I'm often in a meeting where one or another of us will walk over and say, number three, number one, number seven. When RCM was starting, I said, I'm not just going to copy all the other ministries in America. What I'd like to copy is how God's work was done in the Bible. the best days of ministry. And out of that inductive Bible study came 12 core values We live by these. They make our decisions for us. Do you know I don't think I fully realized this those years ago when I was looking at these But when you get your core values set, you have pre-made hundreds of decisions before you ever get to them. Because when you get to the decision, you go, we don't even have a decision. There's only one that lines up with the core values. This is decided. Yeah, but that's going to cost us. Yeah, but that's going to be hard. Yes, but what will people too bad? Now these aren't inspired like everything we that God has told us in his word. But the principle is the same. If you have got your core values, What you will always do, what you will never do. You have pre-made so many decisions. You won't have to decide. It got decided. When you and God settled this, does that make sense? You base your life on core values Write them down. If you're married, commit them to each other. So you can check up on each other and say, honestly, is that really integrity? Or whatever? So here's the recipe for victory. Remember who you are. We've already been over that, Brad covered that so well this morning. And that who you are, your identity, is not defined by the rules you keep. It's defined by the relationship you have. I am a son or daughter of God. I can't do that. Here's a gospel song I would like to sing for you now, but you wouldn't like it if I did, so I'm just going to read you the chorus. Roll back the curtain of memory now and then. Show me where you brought me from and where I might have been. Remember I'm human and humans forget. So remind me. Remind me, dear Lord. I'm always spoken to by those words, show me where you brought me from. And think about where you might have been. But for Jesus. Remember who you are. That's a powerful incentive to carefully follow and fully obey. Secondly, accept no compromise. Accept no compromise. Deuteronomy chapter 12. Look at this. Destroy completely. This must have been popular. All the places on the high mountains, on the hills. It's going to be an option for you, something that could make you drift, get destroyed. Under every spreading tree where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, burn their ashera poles, cut down the idols of their gods, wipe out their names from those places. You must not worship the Lord your God in their way. So this is a basically a no-compromise. No, just a little lie. A little, no, no just a little. Do you know how you'll be able to tell if you're committed to no compromise? You will confess any deviation from God's way of doing things instantly. That's a good measure when you have settled for less than God's standard of righteousness. And you will. The question is, do you make it right with him then? I do not let it grow. I do not drift any farther. I stop it when it's small. Deal with it when it's small. Thirdly, recipe for victory is to remember where you've come from. We just talked about that, didn't we? That's the remember is sixteen times. You know what it's I won't read the verses to you, but here are some of the things it says to remember. Remember how he rescued you. Remember that life-changing message you heard. Remember? That message that changed your life. Remember that. That don't forget that. Remember the detours you've taken in the past. And how that ended. Remember the detours. And remember the times you failed to trust him. and where that went. Those are some of the things Deuteronomy tells us to remember. And finally, internalize God's word. You want to read something interesting? I'm going to take you there. If you want to read a fantastic description of a godly leader, any of you that are leaders in any way, even a parent. Look at this. There's something addressed directly to what will make a great leader. In this case, it's the king. Deuteronomy 17. When he takes the throne of his kingdom, look at this formula. If you're a leader, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of the law. Not just read the Bible. He says, write it out. I want him to personalize this. I want him to make it come alive. I want him to get this. If you're going to leave, but he says, have him write it out. Taken from that of the Levitical priests. It is to be with him. And he is to read it all the days of his life, leader. He is to read it all the days of his life. That he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully, follow carefully, all the words of this law and these decrees. I haven't put all the verses up there, but notice the relationship of the leader to God's word. It is intense. It is daily. It's always there with him. You know how to be a good shepherd? Be a good sheep. That's how to be a good shepherd. So ultimately, our battle is not to possess Canaan. Our battle is Canaan, possessing us. Carefully follow, fully obey. Deuteronomy 6. Here Israel, and be careful to obey, so that it may go well with you, and you may increase greatly in the land flowing with milk and honey. Just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you. And then it says, love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your strength. You are obeying Not out of compliance to some rules. Not out of legalism. Not to check the boxes of a good Christian. Not to perform for God. You obey just because you love the Lord your God. For obedience is his language of love. That's how you love him For a milestone wedding anniversary, Karen and I went to the beautiful island of Nantucket. Wow, what a romantic place. I just found a journal from that just the other day. And I saw something I'd never seen before. I've seen lighthouses in New England. Did you ever see a light ship? There's a light ship. Yeah, it's in the harbor there. It's decommissioned now. But it's a ship with a light, like a lighthouse on it. It's called the Nantucket. I was like, wow. See, about 40 miles off the coast of Nantucket, some of the most treacherous shoals along the East Coast Well the lighthouse wouldn't help too much. So they put the light ship out there to allow the huge amount of traffic going up the east coast to make sure that they don't hit something and they successfully complete their voyage. I thought I wonder what would happen if that that light ship ever went out. The light went out. But worse. What if they didn't know the ship was slowly drifting? And as it slowly drifted, It would be leading every ship that depended on them to disaster. You are the lightship for your family, for your friends, for your coworkers. And you're not going to make it safely home if you're drifting. Because this isn't just about you. It's about the people who desperately need your light. You can't afford the drift. You're a light ship. Let's pray. Lord, through your Holy Spirit, who's so good at this, I pray. This is not a fun thing to teach on, but so much a part of Holy living in a hostile world. Turns out it's not the hostile world that's the problem. It's just that we allow stuff in. We've gone where we We don't even feel bad about going there and we should have. But would your Holy Spirit, I just pray through your Holy Spirit, you would show us. Where the leak is. Show us where the unlocked window or unlocked door is. That weak spot That could sink us. Lord, I have to assume that since you led me to this That somebody here needed it. As a loving warning from their Heavenly Father. Careful. You're not carefully following me. Not fully obeying. There's something I've told you to do you haven't done. Or something I've told you not to do and you're still doing it. I pray we'll take care of that this weekend. And fortify ourselves to be the light in a crooked and walk generation. Holding tightly to the word of life and taking our stand against the devil's schemes. For our righteous lives have never been more needed today. For they are hope for people enveloped in darkness. Pray in Jesus' name.