The Dignity of Faithfulness

In this teaching from Deuteronomy 29:10-15, we explore why ordinary work, ordinary seasons, and ordinary acts of obedience matter when we are standing before the Lord. Give a listen. 

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SPEAKER_00 0:18

Welcome to Messiah in Life, hosted by Bishop Justin D. Elwell. Today we're looking at Deuteronomy 29, 10 through 15 with a message entitled, The Dignity of Faithfulness. Moses reminds Israel, You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God. Among them are leaders, families, children, strangers, and even those who chop wood and draw water. It's a reminder that seemingly ordinary people and ordinary work matter when they are lived faithfully before God. You may not know where the Lord is leading you, but you can trust that He is leading. Your faithfulness is not wasted, and tomorrow belongs to Him. Now to Bishop Justin.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Amen. Good afternoon, everyone. We've not done a live in a couple of weeks because of um medical appointments for my wife, who is presently in New Jersey, so she is down in Jersey at a center there, uh preparing for treatment to begin this afternoon. So there's a lot going on. And today I was intending to uh teach on Ephesians chapter 5, 21 to 32. So we were going to conclude the chapter. Um but I just I wasn't there yet. There's I have 10 pages of notes for those verses, uh, which is remarkable. Um so I was still kind of working and and planning. The way I want to teach it is uh slightly different than is ordinarily um that's how it's ordinarily approached. So I wanted to make sure I have that dialed in and uh to a place where I'm comfortable. So I decided to actually about an hour and 15 minutes ago shift gears, set my 10 pages of notes aside, and um pull out a verse from the portion that stuck out to me, and that will be what we're uh looking at today. Uh the Torah portion for the week is actually a double portion, uh Nitsavim Va'elech. So standing and uh is is Nitsavim standing, and Va'elech is he went in, or he went, and he went. So one is standing, one is going. There's always uh a great deal of rabbinic thought regarding this double portion that begins in standing and then in moving. So there's uh I'm gonna begin reading in verse, uh excuse me, chapter 29 of verse 10, right at the beginning of the portion. So we will begin there, and um, Lord willing, some of this will make sense today. The Torah says, You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God, the heads of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, all the men of Israel, and your little ones, your wives, the sojourner who is in your camp, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water, so that you may enter into the sworn covenant of the Lord your God, which the Lord your God is making with you today, that he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he promised you. And as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, it is not with you alone that I am making this sworn covenant, but with whoever is standing here with us today before the Lord your God, and with whoever is not here with us today. This is God's word. So when we approach this double portion, one of the things that is quite remarkable about it is that it makes a lot of room. Because what we're actually seeing is the renewing of a covenant, uh, and it is an idea of the renewed covenant uh anticipated. So it's not just with those who are standing there, as we'll see, uh, it's those who will come in generations uh in the future. So the moments there are these moments in scripture where the Lord gathers his people together, and he does so in such a way that dignifies the entire community, which at times can seem uh we can feel like we're lost in the crowd. Uh but Deuteronomy 29 is one of those moments when Israel is gathered together, in this case, here they are, gathered on the plains of Moab, and they're preparing to enter or cross over the Jordan into the um the promised land. This is the very tail end. Va'lek is really the conclusion just before Hazinu, where um in Deuteronomy 32 Moses gives a beautiful song. It's one of two songs of Moses. And here he is giving his final admonition, his final encouragement. And so many of the commandments that we find in these two portions are fundamental to the life of faith that we see all the way through the canon of Scripture. So Moses is, of course, renewing the covenant with this generation, but also with the generation that is to come. And it begins so beautifully. All of you. You are standing today, all of you before the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 29 and verse 10. All of you. If I was underlining, as I have in my Bible, it's underlined, all of you is underlined. So all of you before the Lord your God. So Moses is not just speaking to the elders, the obvious people, the elders, the priests, the leaders, the officers, um, those who are in recognized positions within the community. He's speaking to the entire encampment, including women and children. So the then continues to name, the continues to name or identify those who are with the heads of the tribes, of course, the elders, the officers, the men, the women, the little ones, the stranger who is in their midst, who is living among them. But then he adds in verse 11, and this has always stood out to me, and it's I think it's a very encouraging verse, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water. And I think this is a lesson for all of us today when we feel, and I'll um extrapolate on this um uh a little bit more as we go through, but when we feel lost kind of in the shuffle of this age of social media where everyone's a celebrity. Um, I remember a band in my youth uh that I used to listen to, um, and they had a song called uh Everyone's a Star, I think it was, something like that. And when I look at social media in the way that it is today and how people are engaging with it constantly and the silliness quite often, and of course, there is the rudeness that comes up as well. But all of those, the the dimension of what we find in social media, it's you know, it is everyone trying to be a celebrity, trying to stand out in order to be noticed. But here the Lord notices those who are in positions doing ordinary work, ordinary people doing ordinary work, but there they are standing in the camp of Israel, and the Lord recognizes them. So Moses is including the entire assembly, not just those that would be more politically advantageous to mention, um, socially advantageous to mention, but those who are doing the things that quite often we don't think about. So they've held positions, they're not holding positions of influence. They are um they're not recognized as leaders, right? And they may not ever be recognized by name, but they're there. They're there and they mattered. And that's one of the most beautiful aspects of this verse is that we have your little ones, your wives, the sojourner, the one who chops your wood, the one who draws your water. That's still being dignified, still being recognized. So there's something deeply encouraging, I think, in this, that people doing ordinary work are still standing before the Lord. People who are doing things that we might not even consider as being important unless they are absent from our life, then all of a sudden we recognize the importance of the people who are doing them. The Lord is way ahead of us, isn't he? So the person who cuts the wood is standing there, the person who draws the water is standing there, the person who makes it possible for everyday life to happen. The people who make it possible for Moses to be Moses, for the leaders to be the leaders, for the families to be the families, there they are. They're standing there, they're doing their calling, their vocation. So the work might be considered mundane, it might be considered not extraordinarily important to our eyes. Again, once it's not there, we be we discover just how important it is. So it's not mundane to the Lord. Chopping wood, carrying water is not mundane to the Lord. There is, we can see, there's a tradition, not only biblical, but uh what we consider to be just historic tradition regarding um this type of tradition of labor, of work. And as I was kind of preparing these notes, I thought of Hillel the Elder, and then kind of went into ideas regarding vocation and our apostles as well. But Hillel the Elder, one of the greatest sages of of Judaism, Second Temple period, um he wasn't born into a position of prestige, he wasn't born into a wealthy family, he didn't have a great deal of influence for most of his life. But uh the rabbinic tradition remembers that he was a woodcutter, he was one that chopped sheer wood. And he did this in order to support himself while he was pursuing the study of Torah, while he was learning. You know, whatever later embellishments might have uh been added to this, there's still a beautiful and striking uh lesson. You know, the man who became one of the most influential voices in Jewish history, Jewish interpretation, um tradition, you have the house of Hillel, that's him, and the house of Shemai. So he had no idea at the time that he was chopping wood, that he would have an incredible influence on not just his generation, but generations to come. So while he is there doing that simple mundane work that uh that again seems unimportant, do you burn the wood, you you for whatever your use you you have it, and um and then you will you go on to the next thing, or you you continue to chop the wood and so on. I just sorry, I just got a text. Um so when he was chopping the wood, could he have imagined the extent of the influence, the extent that the influence that came from him dedicating himself to working and also to learning, what that would have on generations to come. The arguments of Hillel and Shemai are definitively in the backdrop of the New Testament arguments, um, how the Sadducees and the Pharisees approached Messiah, what they understood the tradition to be directly relates to Hillel. We have also in Jewish tradition Moses by Maimon, Ben Maimon, better known as uh of course Maimonides, who wasn't just a rabbi, he was uh he wasn't just a rabbi, he was um a philosopher, he was a medical doctor, he uh was a legal scholar, so he had many hats that he wore. It wasn't just the rabbinic uh position that he had or that he held, he had um many different. I'm sorry, I'm getting text messages and stuff while I'm recording this, but he he was in many different positions, but again, even while he was pursuing his vocation that may seem not directly related to um his rabbinic work, all of it had influence on how he approached, how he thought, how he reached conclusions. And of course, his conclusions are very much with the uh still within the Jewish community today. The apostolic uh scriptures, of course, we have Paul, who was a tent maker, a Luke who um was, of course, a dedicated um author of the gospel of Luke, but also uh an accurate historian. Um, historians are discovering more and more over the years just how accurate he was. And he was, of course, a physician. He still had to do the work of a physician, we know from Paul. Um, but he, I think, you know, we could still say, wow, he was a physician of his age, he was doing this important work. And I'm sure in his mind, as he was doing the work of a physician, he was thinking of the gospel accounts, he was thinking of who he had to interview, where he had to go, what memory he had to write down, and how all the work that was there before him. Peter, of course, was a fisherman, we know that very well. Many of the apostles were Joseph of Arimathea, he was a very wealthy man who used his resources in service of Yeshua, of Jesus. So their occupations, their circumstances were different, um, but there's a common thread, and the common thread is uh, I think, quite um applicable to us. God's servants, those that he is called, do not always begin where their ultimate calling will take them. So Hillel chopped wood, um, Paul made tents, Maimonides was a physician, Luke was a physician. And then when we think about Yeshua himself, um actually we we touched on this this morning at the men's meeting in Mark 6:3. The crowd says, Is this not the carpenter, uh, the son of Miriam or Mary? You know, the Greek word tectone, um, that's translated as carpenter, is someone who works with materials like wood and stone, um, like a craftsman, a builder. Today we might call them, uh, we might refer to Yeshua as a skilled tradesman. He learned obviously his his trade from his father Joseph, his earthly father Joseph. Um, and I love that. I think it's absolutely beautiful that the word made flesh who dwelt among us while he walked the earth and the years of preparation between the the last instance that we see him as a child at roughly the age of twelve, to the the revelation of his ministry at the beginning at age 13. That during those years he was laboring, he was sweating, he was um engaging with the people. He was learning as he um walked from town to town to work. He was learning the the joys, the trials, the struggles. All of this, of course, would come into play as he um began his public ministry. So the word made flesh labored, and we see that we would not call or refer to anything that he was doing as being uh servile and you know, or something that was common. So this causes us to rethink how we understand vocation, and I think that is very important as well. We live, of course, in a culture that is well, that tends to pressure kids, young people to know what they want to do with the rest of their life, and you better know what that is by the age of 18. Um, I've always believed that there should be a gap here. Uh, you should take a year off work, not just play, but to work, engage, interact with people that are outside of your peer group, and learn what the world is like. Hey, take a year or two before you go to uh a trade school or before you go to college, whatever uh you you might be inclined to do. But take that time to learn. What do I actually want to do? What do I actually feel called to do? So we can't be expected to know at the age of 18 what we want to do with the rest of our lives, but of course, um taking a sensible approach does not help the machinery of higher education. I'll just leave my comments there for now. Um and think about this. Are we supposed to know at 18 what will be um rewarding to us in sense in the sense of I think we uh tend to approach our professions at a younger age with an entirely different uh set of expectations or um uh objectives than we do uh at at age 50 or above. We look at life differently than we do when we're younger, and that's just the blessing and the experience of age. So, you know, as an educator and a counselor, I I don't really uh find that pressure that we apply to children to be all that um helpful, you know, to have everything figured out at 18. Well, you know, at 18, as you know, as I told my guidance counselor, I was either going to be a rock star or an archaeologist. Um the rock star thing didn't pan out, and the more I learned about archaeology, it's far less uh Indiana Jones and uh much more uh digging in the dirt, although I do love archaeology and I think it's still rocks, so still in my wheelhouse. And uh so many of us, let me continue before I veer off the topic even more, but most of us um don't know what our life's work is going to be and the meaning of what our life's work will be ultimately when we're that young. So if we don't know and we don't know ultimately how the Lord will use us, we continue to move by faith, we continue to stand before him, we recognize that we are meaning, we have we matter to him, and ultimately we know that the Lord blesses these things and he uses them for our good. So how many of us, you know, will discover our vocation only after years of doing something else, uh maybe working, succeeding, sometimes changing direction, sometimes pausing career to raise family, uh serving others in different capacities, and simply sometimes experiencing realities of adult life. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's the that's the thing. We uh we have a very, I think we can tend to have a very narrow perception of how we measure our worth and our value before the Lord based on what we do that appears meaningful, but according to the world's definition or society's definitions. So sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do is simply chop wood and draw water. Chop wood and draw water. So do the work that's right in front of you to do. You know, learn what you can learn, be faithful where you are, work with your hands, be involved, study, serve, raise your family, pay your bills, help your neighbor, build something, repair something, grow something, encourage someone. I gave myself a list here, pray, worship. But above all, remain faithful to the Lord while you do it. So your present occupation, my present occupation, um is not always the final expression of our vocation or our call, our calling. So I know something about me. And you know, when I look at my own experience, my own life, on paper, theology is not exactly the most marketable profession. Um you can do well, obviously, but you have to pursue a different trajectory with it than I did. But it's not the most remarkable profession. And by vocation, I'm a shepherd. So what many people don't know about me is that I also know how to work with my hands. Um I can actually looking at this now, chop wood. I can fell a tree, block it, split it, stack it, dry it, use it for uh heat, and so on. Um, I can build a house from foundation to chimney cap. Um I can make repairs, I can raise animals, I can grow food. Uh, in other words, I've spent a fair amount of time over the years of my life chopping wood, carrying water, doing those things that we might identify or think of as terribly mundane. But the reality is that each and every one of those, each and every aspect of what I did over those years, prepared me for what I'm doing now. So when the Lord finally began to open my ears, we might say, to his calling in a deeper way, I remember standing in sheep filth. I'll put it gently. I remember standing in sheep filth wondering if this was really what the Lord had in mind for me. Was this what I needed to pursue for the rest of my life? And there was a time where that was absolutely what I wanted to do. Um, you know, the idea of raising hothouse lambs and you know, having that continual cycle, um, having wool to sell, and although you can't even really give wool away these days. Um, but you know, the agricultural pursuits was something that for a very uh well turned out to be a short period of years, um, was very meaningful to me. And I found a great deal of satisfaction in doing that. But then I wondered, is this what he ultimately has called me to do? So at the time I couldn't see where it would lead. I had no idea the skills that I was learning, the hands-on skills that I was learning would eventually be very important to my vocation uh as a as a minister. But that's often how he works. He'll take those seeming detours in life, and he will work them together for our good, but for his glory. So we want him to show us the destination before we take the first step, but that's not how he calls us to walk by faith and not by sight. So scripture repeatedly, repeatedly shows us people being faithful in what was immediately before them, the work that they had to do immediately before them. But what they didn't know was that the Lord was preparing them for ultimately what they could not see, that greater work or vocation. Remember, David was keeping sheep before he was keeping Israel. Peter was fishing before he was preaching, before he became a fisher of men, he was a fisher of fish. Paul was making tents before he was planting congregations. Luke practiced medicine while recording the story of Yeshua and the early ecclesia, the early church. Hillel was cutting wood before a voice whose influence would, before he became a voice, I should say, before he became a voice who would influence people for centuries. So the ordinary place is not necessarily the wrong place. It's not the wrong place. It may not be the place where you abide forever in that vocation, but it's still not the wrong place. It may be the very place that the Lord is preparing you for your calling. Or certainly before he shifts directions for you, um, but you have to be faithful. You have to be faithful. And this brings us again back to Deuteronomy 29, 15, where uh Moses says, But with whoever is standing here with us today, before the Lord our God, and with whoever is not here with us today, one of the things that I try to encourage people with is that they, and we, I should have they, we, me, us, we have no idea the impact that what we're doing right now will have on future generations. So Moses says that this covenant, this renewed covenant that is being made, is being made not only with those who are standing right there that day, but also with those who are not with us, those who will come, the future generations who will benefit from the faithfulness of the people of God and the Lord's faithfulness into the future. So they're doing something in the present, just as we are doing something in the present that will have implications for those who are not yet present, who are not yet standing with us. So that's important. It's an important word for those who are wondering whether their present life has any meaning, whether their present pursuit has any meaning. Does what I'm doing right now really impact the kingdom of God in any way? And the answer is yes. But it also depends on you maintaining a posture of faithfulness, being faithful in that moment, even though you can't see the necessity of it. So we don't see the whole picture, we don't see the whole um plan that the Lord has. We may be carrying water today, we may be chopping wood today, but the beautiful thing is that we have the Lord who knows what that will be used for tomorrow. So you may be doing the work that feels beneath your ability, beneath your training, beneath your vocation, uh, beneath your education, beneath what your life really, as we might see it, should be, or what we would desire to become. You know, we may be retired and wonder, you know, what is usefulness, what is usefulness look like now? Because again, when we are pursuing um an occupation or employment, we understand what usefulness looks like by virtue of quite honestly the paycheck at the end of the day. So we might be in a season of uncertainty. We don't quite know exactly what the Lord is going to do with this time or this effort or this vocation. But we may be working, we may be working at something right now that doesn't feel as if it would be useful to the kingdom of God. But in reality, when we are doing it again as unto Him, it always is directly connected to the kingdom. But we we cannot assume that because we cannot see the significance doesn't mean that it's insignificant and that the Lord cannot use it. So our work, our study, our retirement, our uncertainty, our change in life, none of this is is necessarily wasted when we're when it's surrendered to him. So Paul reminds us that the Lord, of course, works all things together for the good of those who love him or called according to his purpose, Romans 8.28. So that does not mean that every circumstance is good. I think we've all learned that. It means that nothing surrendered to him is beyond our ability to redeem and to use, or his ability, I should say, to redeem and to use. Malachi encourages us in this way, he quoting the Lord, he says, I the Lord, do not change. So if he was faithful to David while David was in the pasture, right? David was in the pasture preparing keeping the sheep, preparing to uh or learning how to keep Israel to be a leader. And uh if the Lord was faithful to Peter while Peter was on the water, to Paul, while Paul was making tents, and to countless others who were simply doing the work in front of them, remember, he is not changed. He has not changed. He will, he will use that, he will use that time because he, when we are redeemed, when we are his, that time is his. That profession is his, that occupation is his. That's why Paul tells us to do it as unto him. So some are called to the mission field, but others supply the needs for those who are on the mission field. That's still missional, it's still doing the mission. Some preach, while others prepare the room for preaching. Other others prepare the room for the congregation, some teach, others keep the books, right? The accounting, not these books behind us, but this is still very important. Some lead worship, some make coffee. We have a beautiful brother here that makes uh coffee every Shabbat. You'll find him intending to the coffee, and it's such a blessing to so many of us. Some uh drive people where they need to go, right? Others prepare food, uh keep track of the food, clean the building, pray faithfully, give generously, encourage quietly, or simply remain present when someone needs a friend. See, the kingdom of God requires all of this. None of this is insignificant. The role of the person up front is not greater than the role of the person who is sitting and encouraging, or the one who is sweeping, the one who is cutting the wood or carrying the water. You know, in two verses, Moses goes from the heads of your tribes to the one who is drawing your water. I think that's absolutely beautiful. So I've served in ministry in many capacities. I have cleaned the restrooms, um I've mopped the floors, I've painted, I've uh missioned, I've you know, y you name it, however the Lord would use, we go. And I'm deeply deeply, deeply thankful um for those who work faithfully, for those who work faithfully in their respective fields and support the ministry, either with their time, their talent, their treasure, and so on. And it's all of us working together, not one. I have the superior position, you have the inferior position, this all depends on me. And that's the beauty of the parsha. What we see particularly in um is that Moses recognizes that the mission is not dependent on him alone. That's why Joshua is being installed as the next leader. It takes a communal effort, it takes a generational effort, it takes not just this generation, but the next generation. And we are leaning on, Lord willing, the generation that was behind us. See, the kingdom of God requires all of it. So I'm I'm I'm thankful for those who quietly come alongside, those who do the countless things around our you know, ministry, um uh congregational home here that allow me to do the things that the Lord's called me to do. But again, if we look at what Moses is saying here, the heads of the tribes, the officers, the little ones, your wives, your sojourners, wood, carrying water, and so on, all of those people allowed Moses to be Moses. And Moses allowed the one drawing the water to be the one drawing the water. And that is the community of the Lord, the covenant community of the Lord working together that make ministry possible, that make covenant life possible. There are people whose names will never appear in the handout in the in the program. They won't be recognized. Their work may not be announced from the pulpit. Um they may never be publicly recognized for the work that they've done, but they are still standing before the Lord, and their work unto him, their presence before him, is still honored by him. So they're chopping wood, they're carrying the water, and the Lord sees it all. And that's why again, nothing is insignificant when we are doing it faithfully as unto him. So we might be raising our children, we might have put our career on hold to raise our children. Uh, we may have chosen to make uh child rearing our profession, glory to God, our occupation, glory to God, our vocation, glory to God. We may choose to enter the formal ministry, glory to God. We may choose to work in a secular vocation while supporting glory, whatever it is, give glory to God for it. I I know I'm rambling a bit, but this was kind of a sudden change in topic for me today. So this might be why this passage speaks so strongly to me. And it has for many years, as I I've thought about this. It's a painful thing for us to believe that we've wasted our life, right? And we say that to people all the time: don't waste your life. Uh, I think um uh John Piper had a very um popular sermon about don't waste your life if memory serves. So some people look backward and see the roads that they that they had not taken, but and they wondered, you know, if I had taken that road, would there have been a different opportunity? That doesn't mean don't look down that way. You went in the direction that ultimately he was leading you to go to bring you to the place where you need to be. And we don't need to think about what we didn't accomplish. We don't need to consider that. We need to trust him where we are now. So don't believe the lie that your life has been wasted, you know, has been wasted simply because it did not unfold according to the plan that you once imagined. You know, we have, of course, some wonderful guidance counselors in schools, but they cannot, you know, directly track your future. And, you know, uh, according to uh some who were in places of influence in my life at that time and Isaacul, um, I certainly should not be where I am today, doing what I'm doing today. And had I ultimately listened to their voice rather than the voice of the Lord, I had to get to that place of standing in a sheet pen filled with filth in order to say, I think the Lord has something different for me to do. But I honor that time because I draw every day from experience while I was a shepherd. So don't believe the lie. Don't believe the lie that, you know, things didn't accord it, you know, because things did not unfold according to your plan, that somehow you've wasted your life, that's nonsense. Give it to him, even the parts that you believe are wasted. Let him redeem them, let him use them, let him take the wood you cut and the water you carried and determined, determine what they will become and how useful they will be. Because, beloved friends, tomorrow is his. Tomorrow is his, and the day after that is his, and the day after that is his, right? So we often want to know what the Lord is preparing for us. Well, sometimes he'll show us, sometimes he'll give us a glimpse and give us a little taste, sometimes he will not. But it's it's our responsibility to trust him where we are, to be faithful to him where we are, not to know the entire future. We don't have to know every twist and turn of our life, we have to be faithful to him in the present. So Yeshua, of course, waited for the Father's appointed time. When we think about, is it the right time for me to go do this? Well, at the appointed time, at the right time, Yeshua stepped into the ministry that he knew that he would be uh you know called to and that he would uh uh accomplish. But he could not be on his time, it had to be on the father's time. So our responsibility again is to be faithful today. So, what did Yeshua do between the time of stepping into his ministry and the time that he was up in the Galilee? What did he do? Well, he worked, he built, he served, he lived faithfully. All right, he he wasn't just sitting in a cave somewhere um trying seeking enlightenment, trying to, you know, be the best version of himself possible, to step out into no, he was faithful. He lived, he did. You know, the beautiful thing is that he spent all of those years building, working with his hands, and ultimately he would rebuild and renew the fall intent of David, just as the apostles quote um in Acts 15, fulfilling the purposes of the Lord in himself. But even he did not rush ahead of the Lord's timing, the Father's timing. So perhaps, you know, perhaps you needed to hear this today, perhaps you didn't, maybe you need to file this away for another time. But let me be, let me encourage you to say you're not behind. You're not behind your calling, you are in some aspect of your calling right now. I could rest on where I am and and let's just say set cruise control, or if we're driving a Tesla at the autopilot, and but I that's not me. You know, I want to be about his business, I want to be engaged, I want to be involved, I want my mind to be engaged and involved, I want my heart to be engaged and involved. But whatever it is that we're doing now, we can't rush ahead of his time. We have to see where we are now as part of his press, his plan and his purpose and his preparation for us. So remember that you're not behind, you're simply in a season of chopping wood, carrying water. When we get up and do the same thing day after day, we're carrying wood, chopping wood, carrying water. And that's that is okay. Do it faithfully, do it unto the Lord. So the water satisfies, right? Somebody needs that water. We don't think about how water gets to our facility. Well, I do at home because where I at where I live, I am the water, uh, I don't know what they call it down here. You know, I am the water board, you know, I am the water commission. Um we don't think about it until it gets shut off, until there's a problem, until there's a disruption. We don't think about really the power until it there's a disruption. So the water satisfies. Giving someone water, of course, is seen as the most basic found foundational principle of Jewish ethics. If someone's thirsty, give them water. The wood warms, you know. We we like to say if you heat with wood, you know, the fire, the wood will warm you three times. Uh it'll warm you when you chop it, it will warm you when you stack it. It and it will warm you when you put it in your home. But both of these are blessings. The water, the wood, both are necessary. We need people in society, we need people in professions, we need people who are of faith in every sphere of life. So there's dignity in work that serves others, right? There's dignity in doing what needs to be done. There's dignity and faithfulness when nobody is watching. There's dignity in doing everything as unto him. So that I used to use this and it confused the heck out of people for for quite a while. You know, we have the word pretend pretend, right? Pretend. And we look at it negatively. I don't think it's I love to watch children play pretend. When I was young, I loved to pretend, you know, or let's pretend we are. There's a certain degree of preparation and uh training that is in that if we really think about it. But you know, we pretend, P-R-E, hyphen, T-E-N-D, we pretend to where we ultimately feel the Lord is calling us. We have to tend to it now to be about it. We learn faithfulness not just by being faithful when everyone's watching, we uh um exercise faithfulness, we practice faithfulness when no one's around, when no one can see. And he ultimately will use that. And uh we remember again who is standing in Deuteronomy 29, who is standing there before the Lord? The heads of your tribes, those are important uh men. Your elders, your officers, the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives. And it again, I need to highlight verse 11. This is unusual in literature this time for children and wives to be included. The sojourner who's in your camp, that's the one who is simply living with you, the foreigner who is living with you. Of course, the ones, again, I haven't mentioned this yet, but the ones who's chopping wood and the ones who are carrying water. So they're not just kings, they're not just elders, they're not just leaders, not just the people whose names would be remembered, it's not just Joshua and Moses and Eliezer and so on. It's everyone, everyone, even the ones who chop the wood, the ones who carry the water. And Moses tells them uh that there will be others. There will be others who are not there yet. There will be those who come behind them to fulfill to fill the space and to make room. That's why at the beginning of this, for those of you who jumped on a little later, I talked about how the beginning of this portion, or excuse me, these two portions, this double portion, Nitzavim Vailich, makes room. It makes room for those who are coming behind this generation and then the ones coming behind that generation. You know, I'm in a position in life now, you know, I'm 35 years old plus 17. I'm not particularly old by the you know most metrics. I'm well past midlife, so I'm not worried about midlife crises, uh, which is a wonderful thing. I'm not gonna buy a red Ferrari tomorrow. Couldn't pay for it even if I tried, but I had a point, now it's gone forever. But anyway, when I think about where I am now, the position that I'm in now, I begin to think of not legacy, I begin to think of the next generation in terms of faithfulness and being mindful of preparing those who are coming behind me in leadership, making sure that to the best of my ability, to the extent of my calling and my vocation, that I prepare those who are coming behind, that they would have the resources that they need, that they would have the um time that they need in order to step into the calling that they have. Moses is doing that here. Moses is demonstrating that for us here. So this means uh that our faithfulness today may reach far further than we could ever imagine. Um and that's that's a tremendous blessing. Someone may need, someone may stand, let's say. I'm, you know, I think about this wonderful property that the Lord has blessed Messiah congregation with, and I think of the impact that it's having globally, but then I think of the you know, the the congregation 30 years from now, should the Lord tarry. What will they what will they innovate? What will they change? What will they do? Lord willing, this will still be here, uh, should he tarry. But you know, there's an extent to which, you know what, I might not be able to fulfill every part of, you know, the mission that will impact them. No, I need someone who's gonna be maybe in contact with them to do that. So someone may receive the gospel because you kept serving, someone may discover their calling because you encouraged them, someone may find strength because you quietly carried water when they were too weary to carry the water on their own. So do not despise the ordinary, do not despise the season you are in. It would be easy to do that. That's the natural man, that's the response of the flesh, that's the response of the old nature. Um, as I mentioned, my wife is being is undergoing medical treatment right now. It would be easy for me to um let bitterness in. Actually, there's a warning about bitterness in this uh later in this chapter. But that's you know, that's the way that the devil wants you to go. That's the way the enemy wants you to go, to doubt the Lord, to become bitter, shake your fist at heaven, and so on. When the reality is that he's just as present now as he has ever been, if not more so according to our awareness. Of course, he's you know always present, but there's a he has a way of of witnessing or evidencing his presence in the midst of these really trying times. So do not despise the ordinary, don't despise the mundane, do not despise the season you are in, as I said. Don't despise the work that seems insignificant because it's not insignificant. It's only insignificant if we refuse to do it faithfully unto the Lord. So right now, you may be carrying water, right now you may be chopping wood, but again, tomorrow belongs to him. You never know what he's preparing you for, you never know how he is laying that road, how he is cutting that way before you, preparing that way before you. And he doesn't want you rushing ahead, he wants you to move as he calls you to move. So the most important thing is you're his. And this is, you know, you are standing today, all of you, before the Lord, your God, not the Lord, someone else's God over there, and you're just invited to the the you know the party of the moment or whatever. This is your God. So because you're his, you are needed. He redeemed you for a purpose, he redeemed you for his glory. You're needed, your work matters, what you do matters, your life matters, and your faithfulness is not wasted. Not a moment of anything that we do is wasted when we trust him, when we remain faithful to him. So take that to heart, and you know, I hope and pray that there was some part of this message, and I do apologize for the uh the change in um the change in schedule here. I'd hope to return to Ephesians, but as I said, you know, I have 10 pages of notes for Ephesians chapter 5, 20, 21 through 32. And I'm still still working through how I want to present the content that's there. And I want to do it when my heart is in the right place and where my mind is in the right place, because it's uh you know, quite frankly, too important not to. Hey, man, so for the purposes of the uh podcast, I'll uh conclude here, but we'll uh keep the line open here for a few moments if you want to ask any questions.

SPEAKER_00 53:29

Amen. Thank you for studying with us, and until our next episode, may the Lord bless and keep you all in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.