Choose Life

For as long as I can remember, a romantic relationship was something I longed for. I remember being as young as seven years old falling asleep at night with thoughts of love and romance on my mind. The idea that someone would look at a dweeb like me and choose me to love filled my heart with hope, wonder, and anticipation.

As I grew up into adolescence and young adulthood, this led to a heavily flirtatious way of life. I wanted a relationship so bad that I treated women as those who would possibly fill this great desire in my life for love instead of treating them as sisters in Christ. Many sins of speech were made by me in my high school and college years because I wanted to win someone over.

But as soon as I would have a young woman get close to me I would freak out and bail.

Every time.

Then came Jamie.

We dated for a year, were engaged for a year, and then on June 23, 2018, we got married.

My lifelong dream came true.

I had that God-honoring relationship I longed for with a beautiful woman. We set out on our honeymoon the next day: staying in the boiler room of a Carnival cruise ship. Had we hit an iceberg, we would’ve been the first to go.

On our honeymoon I had an experience I will never ever forget. I was standing on the adults-only deck of the cruise ship, looking out over the open ocean. My wife Jamie was sitting just a few feet behind me reading a book. I looked out over the water and thought “Is this it?”. My whole entire life I wanted what I now had more than anything on earth. And yet, I was empty.

Even the most healthy, amazing, perfect relationship with a beautiful follower of Jesus can not satisfy my soul.

Holding fast to my wife, as much of a gift as that is, doesn’t bring life.

What is it that you’re holding fast to?

Maybe it is the high of watching your kid succeed in athletics. I serve on staff at a church in North Texas, and around these parts athletics reign supreme. We live, move, and breathe sports, from Top of Texas football, to incessant travel ball opportunities on the weekends. We start young and we don’t let up. We expend all of the energy and money we have to make sure our kids have the absolute best shot at a scholarship.

But to what end?

Stress, anxiety, depression and the like are at all-time highs in the lives of our teens.

Holding fast to collegiate sport dreams doesn’t end in life.

Maybe it’s numbing the pain of a broken world. You have had fractured relationships, fractured dreams, and fractured hopes. Where do you turn? To the next season of Outer Banks, the 24/7 fear-mongering of your cable news network, or the quirky fun of Duolingo? It’s not so much that you are wanting to hold fast to something other than Jesus. It’s rather that you’d prefer to be hidden from the realities of life in a broken world.

Maybe it’s money. Stuff. The American Dream. You pursue the next vacation, next vehicle, next gadget, or next goldendoddle. And it only leaves you empty.

Here’s the beauty my friends.

There is One who offers us fullness of life. Not only high-quality life, but long-lasting life. And it’s not found in living vicariously through your kid, the next Amazon Prime show, or the trip you’re taking to Colorado.

It’s found in intimacy with God.

Listen to this.

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.” – Deuteronomy 30:19-20

The book of Deuteronomy is tremendous. Most people get lost in the weeds of weird laws and ordinances. But if you can zoom out and see the story it is telling, you see a glorious invitation to life. Over the next three months, I will be looking at this magisterial book with my students on Sunday mornings. I hope to share some of my thoughts and things that I have learned here for you to read as well.

Here’s what this passage, nestled into the story of Deuteronomy tells me.

Life found in God and nothing else.

Just as my daughter Gracie will likely face similar temptations towards specific sins like her father, history is cyclical. If we don’t look back and assess our history, we are doomed to repeat it and find the same results.

A look at Deuteronomy is a look at our history as God’s people. We can make the same exact mistake the people of God did in the wilderness. We can choose death instead of life. We can bring down the curse of sin’s effects on our lives, or we can walk in the blessings of the Father.

So many of us don’t realize that the choices we’re making effect our ability to walk in the realities of God’s blessings. We run at a lighting fast pace and don’t experience peace. We enviously gawk at the lives of those around us, all while missing out on gratitude and thanksgiving. We fret and freak and worry and get anxious as we fill our minds with the gunk of modern news, all while missing out on the abundant joy found in trusting in God’s sovereign purposes in the world.

Brother or sister in Christ, choose life.

Choose life.

When you hold fast to Jesus, you thrive.

When you obey His voice, you thrive.

When you obey His voice, you have the highest-quality life.

When you pursue Him above all else, you will come to see how He is dwelling in your midst.

So many believers cling to the things of this world hoping to eke out a little bit of life. Intimacy with Jesus feels foreign and weird so we try and do the American Dream with some Jesus sprinkled in there on the occasional Sunday and Wednesday.

I want you to know that all you’re doing is preventing yourself from experiencing real life.

To choose Jesus over athletics, academics, entertainment, prestige, or money is not to miss out on life.

It’s to find it.

In His Name,

Nate Roach

Afraid Of Giants

Do you ever wish God would audibly speak to you? That He would tell you what to do, where to go, and that He would be with you? Or if not you, wouldn’t it be nice to have someone so in tune with God that they could communicate His promises to you? Honestly, I wish I had that setup sometimes. In my naïve and innocent mind, I convince myself I would never doubt God’s promises or commands if I could just hear them out loud from a person of God.

At one point in time, the people of God had that luxury. They had men and women who heard from God and relayed God’s message to the people. The intro to the book of Deuteronomy teaches us, however, that despite these clear verbal messages, the people still rebelled. They rebelled big time. They quivered in fear, doubted God, whined and complained, and even begged to be thrown back in slavery. True story.

The book of Deuteronomy is more or less Moses’ last will and testament. He is standing between his people and the promised land. This is his final sermon. He begins (what is the first three chapters of Deuteronomy) by reminding the people of God all of what had occurred so far between God and this present generation’s ancestors. So, be aware, what is being described in these chapters has already happened; the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers tell these stories. Moses is merely reminding them of what has gone on before.

Moses reminds them first of God’s promise to their parents to give them victory over their enemies. Look at the passage with me.

See, I have set the land before you; go in and take possession of the land that I swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and their descendants after them. – Deuteronomy 1:6

Moses then recounts what he told their parents:

I said to you. . . See, the Lord your God has given the land to you; go up, take possession, as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you; do not fear or be dismayed.” – Deuteronomy 1:20, 21

Let’s zero in on this past event. The stage is set. The people of God know without a doubt what God had promised them: a land for their possession, a God who would never leave them, and a Lord who would fight for them. You would think they’d jump right up and run right in to battle.

Sadly, that’s not what happened.

Instead we see that the people of God disobeyed the commands of God. As Deuteronomy 1 continues, we hear Moses speaking, reminding the people of how things went south. Moses reminds them it was their idea to send spies into the land (vv. 22-25). At first glance you might see things look hopeful. At first glance it looks like they’re preparing for war. But then you read verse 26.

But you were unwilling to go up. You rebelled against the command of the Lord your God; you grumbled in your tents and said, “It is because the Lord hates us that he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to hand us over to the Amorites to destroy us. – Deuteronomy 1:26-27

Wow.

We know from the book of Numbers it was the presence of thirteen-foot giants in the land that prevented the people of God from having the courage to fight for what was theirs.

Fear of giants kept the people of God out of the land of promise.

This might be where some would stop and bring up the cliché ‘what giants are you facing’ stuff. In my opinion, the book of Deuteronomy needs to be read somewhere between literalism and allegory. Meaning, this is a historical book with historical facts. It’s not purely an allegory, where each character in Deuteronomy is some aspect of our spiritual lives. Deuteronomy is not Pilgrim’s Progress. We must be careful not to over-spiritualize things. That being said, this book is not just a book. Rightly read and applied, it should correct us, rebuke us, teach us, and train us in righteousness.

I want us to think about this in a deeper way than pure allegory.

The people of God were rescued out of slavery in Egypt. Four hundred years of brutal, oppressive slavery in an evil empire’s back-breaking regime. They cried out to the Lord generation after generation. Finally, God rescues them in miraculous fashion with plagues and the parting of the Red Sea.

IT WAS THESE VERY MEN AND WOMEN WHO NOW REFUSED TO ENTER THE PROMISED LAND DUE TO FEAR.

They had seen God lay waste to the dynastic empire of that day. Egypt was it. They were the big dogs. And yet God laid utter waste to their land and their army in order to rescue His people.

Now you’re on the edge of the land promised to you by God. And some 13-foot giants scare you? What?

So my question for us is not what allegorical giants are in our lives.

No, my question is: Are we remembering what God has done for us?

The question is not what’s in our way.

The question is whether or not we obey.

You see, we have something much better than the people of God in Deuteronomy. We don’t have a prophet. Rather, we have the combination of God’s Word spoken to us in Scripture and the Spirit of God illuminating it for us. God does speak to us in His Word, in Scripture.

Are we obeying it?

Are you obeying it?

In His Name,

Nate Roach

On Jordan’s Stormy Banks

“On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand,
and cast a wishful eye
to Canaan’s fair and happy land,
where my possessions lie.”

Whether or not you know this hymn probably says a little something about your age. Throughout the twentieth century this was an incredibly popular hymn, but to be honest, I had not heard it before. Or if I had, it’s somewhere in the hidden recesses of my mind like all the knowledge of Power Rangers and college football stats that I once had.

Those who sing this hymn likely are not saying that their hope and happiness are found in the literal, geographical location of Canaan. Instead, they are likely thinking of heaven when they sing this song.

Either way, it is this hymn that describes the scene that Deuteronomy paints for us. The entire book is documenting the scene described in the hymn.

The entire narrative of Scripture to this point pushing forward to this moment.

Genesis. Creation. Fall. The gospel promise. The origins of humanity. The origins of the cosmos. The promised one to come. The promised nation to come. The promised blessing to come. The grace of God on Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The sovereignty of God over the life of Joseph. Power in a new world. All seems well.

Exodus. A new power rises. Slavery. Oppression. Pain. Moses. The plagues. The promised one to come. The Passover. The rescue from Egypt. The Red Sea. Mount Sinai. Testing in the wilderness. The promised land to come. The Ten Commandments. The way the people were to live.

Leviticus. The laws of God. The worship of God. The relationship of God to His people. The Tabernacle. The presence of God. The sacrificial system. The holiness of God.

Numbers. The march towards the promised land. The fear. The rebellion. The punishment. The death of the old, the life of the new. The forty years in the wilderness. Moses’ inability to enter the land of promise. The justice of God upon the disobedience of His people.

What now?

This is the most brief synopsis of the Pentateuch I could possibly write. There is so much more to each and every book. So much more.

But I write it so that I can say what I believe to be true.

If the book of Deuteronomy bores you, it’s because you don’t know the story.

When you know the story, the Biblical narrative, this moment in the story is immensely important. God has promised His people Canaan, and it’s right in front of them. Sure, reading through all the laws isn’t the most exciting Bible experience, nor is it the most immediately applicable. Especially when we understand that we are not held to the minutiae of the Old Testament Law. But with all those caveats, the book of Deuteronomy can still be a deep dive into the beauty of Scripture, the beauty of Jesus, the beauty of grace, the beauty of our part in the story.

Moses is speaking to a new generation of God’s people. The previous generation had died in their disobedience. Now this new generation was poised to enter the Promised Land. Moses was not allowed to enter. So here we have his final sermon, his final guidance given to his people. The book of Deuteronomy is two of his speeches to the people with a re-statement of the law sandwiched between them. Yes, it’s not the most popular book in our churches, but it is immensely important.

In fact, Deuteronomy has been used a lot in American history. Did you know that John Winthrop, the leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, used it to conclude a sermon he preached to his people right before they made it to New England? While I definitely don’t agree with early patriotic readings of the Old Testament where the ‘New World’ was equated to the ‘Promised Land’, you can see from history how Deuteronomy was used to encourage and admonish when people felt themselves on the edge of a new beginning.

Deuteronomy was also utilized in the spiritual songs of African-American slaves, as they longed for freedom in a promised land, whether that be spiritual or historical (like the Underground Railroad). This reading of the book of Deuteronomy is one I am far more sympathetic to.

Either way, we all can glean from it like those before us.

2 Timothy 3:16 will tell us that Deuteronomy teaches us, corrects us, rebukes us, and trains us in righteousness. With that in mind you mustn’t ignore it.

It is because of all this that I want to encourage you to read it. Imagine yourself in the story, immerse yourself in the story. Your parents were rescued out of Egypt by God, and they told you about it. Then they cowered in the face of difficulty and opposition, despite having their miracle-producing God on their side. This led to them dying in the wilderness. But here you are, you look across the Jordan river and see the land of promise. They had told you stories. It was a land of great fruitfulness, a land flowing with milk and honey. A land where you would be free. A land where you would be able to make themselves a home. A land where you could commune with God in prosperity and blessing. You look up and your leader Moses, who looks old and aged, weak and dying, is about to speak.

Now dive.

Dive deep into Deuteronomy.

You won’t regret it.

In His Name,

Nathan Roach

(This upcoming semester, I will be preaching through the book of Deuteronomy {at high altitude} for the student ministry I shepherd. When I study a book, there is so much more that I glean than I have time to share on any given Wednesday night, so I will be posting some blogs like this one of what I’ve been learning. The book I’ve relied the most on is Thomas Mann’s commentary on Deuteronomy, and that will likely show in my posts.)