How Do You Look at Life?
Deuteronomy 6:20-25
Introduction:
How do you look at life? Some people see life as one big party. They live for the weekends and sometimes even start their party before the weekend begins.
Some people see life as work, work, and more work. They get up early to start work; they have no time during the day except for work; and they go to bed late burning the midnight oil working. They cannot let living life interfere with work.
Some people see life as the gathering of possessions. Their whole life is collecting things they think that have to have but after a little while they will never use again.
Some people see life as the here and now. They see nothing beyond this life. For them, the grave settles it. Some people see life as eternity. In this present life you just have to cope with it until you get to the other side and for them that is when life begins.
And then there is the way that Jesus sees life. And He tells us in Deuteronomy that the way He sees life is the way you and I should look at life.
Let’s see this morning how God wants us to look at life.
Read Deuteronomy 6:20-25
I. God wants us to look back at our life to see how He has brought us to this very point.
Deuteronomy 6:20-21 “In the future, when your son asks you, "What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?" Tell him: "We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.”
Some people look back at their life and see nothing but guilt. They have done something in the past and it haunts them to this very day. They wish one hundred times over that they could take it back.
Some people look back at life and see nothing but regret, missed opportunities. They keep telling themselves, “if only I would have (and you fill in the blank)”
Some people look back at life with longing for those good old days. You know those good old days when you walked five miles to school up hill both ways. When it only cost a nickel for a coke. They see life has changed so much from then and wish things could return to the way it was.
But God is telling us whatever has happened in our life whether it be good or whether it be bad, the whole purpose was to get us to this very point. God says “I know your past that you were slaves in Egypt but I used that to bring you to this very point.” You are about ready to cross over in the Promised Land because I have brought you to this point.
Some of you today may be on the verge of really selling out to God? You are tired of playing religion and you want to commit to the person of Christ. Well, he has taken your past and has brought you to this point.
II. God wants us to remember how He did the miraculous in our life.
Deuteronomy 6:22 “Before our eyes the LORD sent miraculous signs and wonders--great and terrible--upon Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household.”
There is not a person in this room in which God has not done the miraculous.
We can go pew by pew and person by person and list the miracles that God has done in each one of our lives. Nobody would be skipped.
God tells the Israelites see how I performed the miracles in your life. I did signs and wonders before your very eyes and I want you to remember those things.
Do you see life as God doing the miraculous on your behalf? God is telling you and I see how I performed miracle after miracle in your life. I did those things to bring you to this very point.
III. God wants us to see how He has provided for our needs.
Deuteronomy 6:23 “But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land that he promised on oath to our forefathers.”
Notice that God took them from a bad situation, from a place of slavery, and brought them to their own land. They were no longer going to be slaves but free.
Some of us are in bondage today. Whether it is pornography, drugs, homosexuality, alcohol, gambling or whatever, that same God who took the Israelites out of slavery wants to take you out of your bondage today and meet your needs.
Churches should be jammed packed each Sunday with people who want to be set free from their bondage. We are full most Sunday’s but there are a lot what are relatively empty because people say I can not meet God until I first clean up my life. But the truth is that you tried that way and it did not work yesterday and is going to work today.
Philippians 4:19 “And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”
As you look back at your life do you see God meeting your needs?
IV. God wants you to know that He is the One that has protected you.
Deuteronomy 6:24 “The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today.”
Have you ever thought to yourself, I don’t know how I made it this far? God! God has been protecting you.
God tells the Israelites that I am the One that will protect you and keep you alive.
You may be thinking that you are protecting something? But you are not. You cannot protect your self. You cannot protect your spouse. You cannot protect your children. You need someone who neither sleeps nor slumbers and that is only God.
V. God wants us to know that He has made way for us.
Deuteronomy 6:25 “And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.”
The Bible says the wages of sin is death and that we are all sinners. And so it seems like there was no way to eternity except that Jesus left the riches of heaven to take on human form, die on a cross, and allow us to take on His righteousness. When there was no way God found a way.
Today, your life might seem like a dead end. There is no way out. I would like to introduce you to Jesus because He can make a way.
He made a way for the Israelites to leave the land of slavery and go to a land of milk and honey. And God can make a way in your life.
Conclusion
God has brought you to this point. Will you go with Him a little further because He will make a way for you? Come to the altar and see your life as God sees your life. Will you come?
