Turn your eyes upon Jesus

Pastor Devon Ortiz began Deuteronomy 7 by talking about hope. The news, the economy, and even churches will try to zap you of your hope, he said, and the answer is the song the church had just sung: turn your eyes upon Jesus, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim. If God's people would stop looking at each other and at the world and look to Him, the church would find revival.

He set up the chapter by recalling what Moses was doing. Moses was instructing the people to be who they should be so their children could be who they should be. We do not raise children to follow Christ simply by instructing them, Pastor Ortiz said, but by being what we ask them to be. If you love God with all your heart, you will serve Him with all your heart. Every church has people who want to help, and what is often missing is effort: people who sing so quietly no one can hear them. Chapter 6 is the motto of the Christian life, to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and might. Chapter 7 puts that motto under pressure.

The blessing comes with a fight

Verse 1 says, "When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land," and Pastor Ortiz pointed out that it says when, not if. God is not a God of maybes. But what the blessing brings is seven nations "greater and mightier than thou." Is it a blessing? Yes. Is it handed over like a lottery prize? No. We love the first word of Psalm 1, "blessed," and forget the rest of the sentence: the one who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.

The Christian life means regular battles that are far stronger than you are. We often say God will never give us more than we can handle, but Jesus said, "Without me ye can do nothing." The truth is that God will always give you more than you can handle when you are walking by yourself, he said. God does the delivering, and in verse 2 He says what the people's job is: to smite them, make no covenant with them, and show them no mercy.

Why such a hard command?

Pastor Ortiz said this passage used to rub him the wrong way and sound like genocide. What changed his mind was reading Genesis 15:16, "the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." God had been waiting, giving them room to turn, and only when they exceeded their limit did He act. Leviticus 18 lists what the Canaanites did, including sacrificing their children. God judged Canaan for the sins of Canaan, not because of race or because they were not Israelites. He pointed to Rahab, a prostitute in Jericho whom God spared. She appears in the family line of Jesus as the mother of Boaz. God is not looking at ethnicity, he said. He is looking at whether you will submit to Him.

What God commanded, and why

Do not blend with those who will turn you away. In verses 3 and 4 Moses forbids intermarriage with these nations, and he gives the reason with certainty: "they will turn away thy son from following me." It is a will, not a maybe. The ban flows from worship, not race: they worship other gods, they want other things, they do not share your principles, and it will destroy your relationship with God. Pastor Ortiz tied it to 2 Corinthians 6:14, "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." Solomon ignored this, 1 Kings 11 says, and his wives turned his heart away. It matters whom you talk to, whom you let into your life, and with whom you are vulnerable. The person your child marries will shape your grandchildren's faith more than any church or sermon.

His own pastor growing up used to say your greatest friends should be those God has brought you in church. If God has a plan for where you are supposed to be, the people around you there are the people you are supposed to be with, and saying "I do not want those people in my life" tells God He does not know you well enough. Instead, he said, we have a church full of individuals who want to do their own thing and build their relationships outside God's people. He keeps hearing of churches closing and put it down to churches that have fallen in love with things they should not.

Destroy what draws your worship. Verse 5 names four targets, and he explained each so we know them when we read the Old Testament. The altars were places of sacrifice. For us the altar is where we pray and sacrifice our will for His, "not my will, but thine, be done." The images were standing pillars, statues of gods, and modern idols are devices, entertainment, and food. "Where is your devotion?" he asked. "Where is your heart at?" The groves were wooden poles set up so a place felt serene and peaceful, and people felt one with nature there. The graven images were carved idols we draw hope from. God did not tell Israel to put these in a museum for history's sake. He said to destroy them, because what you will not destroy will one day destroy you. Exodus 23 says that serving their gods "will surely be a snare unto thee," and Judges 1:28 shows Israel put the Canaanites to tribute and did not drive them out. Before long Israel was thinking they were not so bad and that they should not be so narrow-minded or legalistic, and then fell into the very thing they thought was fine.

Know why God is so strict: He loves you. After a very hard command he gives one of the sweetest reasons. Verse 6 says, "For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God." Why so narrow-minded? Because I love you. Most of us love selfishly, to make ourselves feel good, he said, but when God loves, we become better. Holy here means "I claim you, you are mine, and I do not want to lose you." The phrase "special people" translates a Hebrew word meaning a private treasure. You are not only God's property, you are His treasure. He compared it to a store promotion where shoppers turn over the whole store hunting for a hidden gold plush Santa, because to them it is treasure. God so loved the world, John 3:16 says, and Jesus said in Luke 19:10 that the Son of man "is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

Chosen by love, not by merit

In verse 7 God "set his love upon you," and Pastor Ortiz explained that it means He fastened it, the way Jesus set His face like a flint toward the cross. God has one single purpose toward you, and it is to love you. Verses 7 and 8 should be read slowly. God did not love Israel because they were great or because they had something different. They were the fewest of all peoples. "But because the LORD loved you." That is all. Why does God love Pastor Ortiz? Not because he is special, he said, but because God loved him. "We love him, because he first loved us," as 1 John says. Our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, so what we do always falls short, and God is not measuring how close you are to Him by your works. He is asking whether you want Him more than every other distraction. You never earn God's love, so failing to earn it will never cost you His love.

Verse 9 says, "Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments." When we give our devotion to Him, we are giving it to an almighty God, not to a person, and when we turn away we are turning away from Him. What pleases the Lord is not a pastor's title or a list of accomplishments. It is love. And when you fall short, as a just man falls seven times, the verse says God keeps mercy with those who love Him. Where do you find mercy? When you take your devotion and give it to Him, and when you do, you will obey. The things you love are the things He wants you to love, the things you hate are what He hates, and the things you keep or destroy are what He tells you to keep or destroy.

Do you feel chosen, or do you have to prove yourself?

Pastor Ortiz closed by asking whether we feel chosen by God's love or feel we have to prove we are good enough by our merit. Many Christians try to show God they love Him by how much they do because they are not living right, he said, and they burn out, lose hope, and fall away. When we truly love Him, we serve because we want to and we never get weary in well doing, because we know whom we serve. In his prayer he asked that we recognize three things: there is great blessing coming, but we have to work for it and step out of our comfort; we have to hate what He hates and love what He loves, even when that is hard because some of what He hates we love; and we need to know who He is to us, a good Father who has chosen to see this dirt as treasure.