After the Sermon: Deuteronomy 2:4 - 3:29

2/2/26 | Will DuVal | DEUTERONOMY: Remembering God's Faithfulness; Responding in Obedience

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Welcome to the After the Sermon podcast where pastor will answers follow-up questions and we share your personal applications from the sermon for the benefit of the church. My name is Brian. I'm here with our lead pastor Will Hello back after one week off after being snowed in after Snowmageddon.

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Yeah, when I spent, gosh, what was it, 75 minutes on one chapter of Deuteronomy, the rest of Deuteronomy one. So I think I exhausted everything. No question. No follow up questions. Anyway, no questions

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Needed for that. With this podcast, we want to remind you that sermons are not just a Sunday thing. I want to be hearers and doers of the word. So we've got a lot of questions from one of our listeners, from Brad. Thanks Brad. So just see how many of his that we can get through today. Thanks so much, Brad, for your questions.

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A lot of overlap in some of 'em. So yeah, we'll end up figure out how we group 'em together. But yeah,

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First one in Deuteronomy two, God governs borders, timelines and outcomes. He gives land to some nations that you pronounce far better than I do. I don't know about that and restricts Israel from taking it. What does this teach us about God's sovereignty over our circumstances and how should that shape our trust in Jesus when life feels unfair or confusing? I'll say just really quick, the ZI was like, Amanda, I can't wait to hear how you pronounce that. I read that in advance and I was like, I don't know how he's going to do it. The

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Zme, it sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings or wing feather saga. I don't know. But yeah, I think to me the short, because I'll try and be short, he's got 10 or 12 good questions is that I see God's sovereignty on the macro level of raising up kings, removing kings from office, raising up nations to replace other nations, moving geographical boundaries and who owns what land where for how long? And I see God again, we're chess pieces on God's chessboard. I think I see God's sovereignty playing out, unfolding in human history and geopolitical civilization and all of that on a macro level really as a reminder to us and of how God really does do the same for us personally in our personal lives. On a micro level, I think about my own story and how God had me raised in the place I was for the time that I was, and even circumstances of that removing my dad from my house.

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And again, this all gets to a bigger point and Brad's got some questions too about human agency and free will and God's sovereignty and how the two kind of played together. And obviously my dad had a say in leaving our family, God is sovereign and God allowed. And I think it's fair to say that God even removed my dad from our family in middle school and seeing God's learning to see God's hand in that moving me to South Carolina for college, back to Tennessee, to Nashville for divinity school and then up to Indiana and now here and others, you could hopefully try and look back at least and trace and see God's hand and how God has had you in the time and place and family and friendships and whatever else job that he has for the season that he has for different purposes. And again, some of that we might not see and understand until after the fact or even much after the fact when we get to heaven and hopefully maybe, I don't know people, there's not really anywhere in the Bible that leads me to believe that we're going to have this sit down kind of like, let me ask you all these questions about and get finally now understand what you're doing at every juncture in turn in my life.

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  I just don't think we're going to care that much at that point when you're in God's presence. But anyway, all that to say, what does it teach us about God's sovereignty? I mean, I think it teaches us that he is sovereign over both the macro and the micro in our lives, in our circumstances. And as far as Brett's, how should it shape our trust in Christ when life feels unfair or confusing? Yeah, I do. I go back to some of the great examples of scripture. I mean, I do think, and maybe not just because I was just finishing up Genesis a couple of weeks ago in my Bible reading plan in a year, and the example of Joseph and just so many, what, 13 chapters, the last 13 chapters or 14 of Genesis is Joseph's story. And I mean Joseph was an annoying younger brother, but did he deserve to be sold by his own brothers into slavery in Egypt?

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  And then you just think about going to unfairly thrown in prison after pot's wife is hitting on him and then unfairly being left there after the, what's the cup bearer or the baker, whichever one forgot about him and he's rots there another two years and just over and over. And Joseph had every right to frankly a little bit like Moses after all that he went through to serve God and serve God's people. And now I don't get to go into the promised land and this is unfair, but you can, again, you can, I think back to, I think mentioned it on the Zoom message from week before last and that conversation I had when again, God removed my father, my father chose to leave our family and I was just angry, bitter, resentful and God and everyone else. And then having that sit down conversation with one of the elders of our church that said, look, these are the circumstances, these are the facts.

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  You don't get to control them. You do get to control how you respond and you can be angry, bitter and complain, and that's not fair. Or you can choose to believe this is faith, that God is still God, he has not left his throne, he is still sovereign. That means he at the very least allowed this, if not ordained this in some way and he's working it into his plan and it's going to be a good plan even when it doesn't feel good right now. And again, you can just choose to trust all that or not. And again, I think there's a point at which you say, regardless of whether I trust it or not, I mean it's not bringing my dad back. It's not delivering Joseph out of prison a day sooner, regardless of whether he gripes about it or not, it's not getting Moses into the promised land, whether or not he sits there and grumbles about it or whether he accepts his fate.

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  So maybe that's the pragma is then me saying, you might as well just choose to believe, choose the path of faith and hope and joy and amidst trials that God is still working and all, I mean the sort of modern day worship song platitudes and whatever. But I mean so much of it is true if it's not good yet, he's not done working or whatever the bridge of that song is, but just if it's not good yet, he's still writing the story. So yeah, I hope that somewhere in there that I think that touches on some of Brad's question there. And again, we got another 11 of these, but a lot of them are going to come back to that same thing. So hopefully getting that up front, he's good level setting for

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  This second question, Israel is instructed to not seize what God has not given. How does this challenge the way we pursue power recognition or control today?

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  Boy, that's a really good one. And he's got a question later. Yeah, it's the very next one. When are we tempted to take what we want rather than to receive what God gives? I see those as pretty similar questions, both really good questions. I think it can be really hard to even discern the difference. I mean, in my experience and between when am I over asserting myself and my will and taking something that maybe God's not giving versus humbly submitting to God's plan and receiving what he is giving. And again, a lot of questions later on here as well from Brad about passivity versus being too passive. Well, lemme just go ahead and wrap that one in as well. A really good question. He asks as well about where is it? How do we balance spiritual passivity? God will do it so I don't have to act with self salvation.

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  I'll do it without God. Again, I think a very similar kind of thing. And I think again, to me, I always just map back onto my own personal experience and hopefully maybe that's helpful for people to think of real life flesh and blood examples of some of this. But I think of for instance, when I was candidating as the associate pastor here at West Hills Candidating to potentially become the lead pastor here, and just even some of the discernment with that and some of the conversations and decision-making and process interviews and whatever else that went into that. And again, I just speak for myself. I think it can be very hard to find that line of like, okay, is this me seeing a potential opportunity that I think would excite me in a lot of ways and I think I'd be good at and I think would be good for the church and good for my family, whatever else.

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  How much of this is me seeing these things and me again asserting myself into the process and with the way that I show up with versus me waiting on the Lord? How much does scripture talk about those who wait on the Lord and his will and his plan? And I think it can get really hard too. I just throw this out when oftentimes the waiting on the Lord really means waiting on human beings who are, and in some, I mean I'm talking about an example in the church when these other human beings involved are the elders of West Hills at that time, the search team and whatever else that they believe in the Lord too and his sovereignty and they're just trying to discern his will as well. I'm thinking about for the person who's going through that similar kind of thing at their secular workplace and they see this opportunity for a promotion, they want it, and how much of it in especially that kind of a secular corporate maybe environment cutthroat, how much do you have to go out and man kind of master of your own destiny and seize the eye and take it as opposed?

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  How do you faithfully wait on the Lord and submit to his plan and be careful not to be overly trying to manipulate and control the situation such it's your will that comes about out. And I mean, yeah, these are not easy. I think so much of it. There's not much that probably can be helpfully said in black and white terms other than what God's already told us in his word. But I think so much of it just really is circumstantial. It's case by case, it's person by person. I think obviously knowing your own tendencies, for me knowing that some people tend to be more passive, some people tend to be more of, well if God really wants me to take that job or that promotion or whatever, and it's like, well yeah, maybe God opens the door, but you still got to walk through it.

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  When is God locking the door to see are we faithful enough to kick in the window? I mean, I think there's just so many factors that I don't think you can easily always say, well, God just makes his will totally clear to his circumstantially just because all the pieces seem to be falling into place. Does that mean that God is smiling upon this opportunity or this decision for you? I mean, gosh, the Israelites could have looked at the situation in Canaan and said, well, if God really wanted us to take this land, he have made the people, the inhabitants there a little shorter, a little smaller, made them more take if he's telling us to go take it. So I do think that there is a sense in which God, we have to be careful about confusing what's easy with what's good and best and certainly confusing what we want with what God wants.

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  And so yeah, man, I'm not actually answering any of those questions probably in any kind of helpful way other than to say that it's hard, it's really hard. I guess that the most helpful thing then that we can say is how important, because it's difficult to discern often how important the role of prayer is and not just praying, talking to God, making your request and petitions and will known to him, but really sort of reflective listening prayer where I'm listening for God's voice and his nudging in a direction and that kind of still small voice of the spirit. I can think of just a couple really.

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  And in one or two of the cases where I really felt like God was just impressing something on my heart, it wasn't even a big life-changing decision that I had to make. It was just an interpersonal thing like, Hey, you need to reach out to this person right now. But I can think of a couple times when it was a more life-changing decision. It was like, God, I don't know if you're calling me to take this job or that job or this or that, and just the importance of being still knowing that he is God, trusting that he has God and then because of it, listening to him. I do think too the role of really knowing God's word and internalizing his word gets us more in touch with his heart and his mind and his will as well. And then the last thing too is just his people, his word, his spirit, his people, his people, is that God has given his spirit to not just you but to others.

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  And so I think that's where being a part of a life group, a discipleship group, a whatever kind of community of faith it is for you, the smaller group community of folks you can really go deeper with and share, Hey, this is what's going on in the life of our family right now. This is what's been going on with our daughter at school and why we're thinking that maybe God is calling us to change schools. What do y'all think? And having other people who are objective, who are like, yeah, I think y'all are just honestly being kind of complainy and you're going to have problems at any school, and those same problems are just going to chase you to the next one. So don't change schools or there's just another practical example, but I think someone else who can speak into your life and say, yeah, I think that's you.

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  To bring it back to Brad's thing, seizing control or taking what God is not giving God. Maybe God is not giving you this out to move schools or whatever, and it's you grasping at we want to control the environment or dictate things that again, is not our land to take and to dictate, given that domain to the school, you're the parent, not the school administrator. You aren't always going to agree with every decision, but don't be those people that just jump and jump and jump. So anyway, that's just another practical example I could think of off the top of my head of a way that might play out in real circumstances for some folks.

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  Yeah. Next one, you may have already answered. How or when are we tempted to take what we want rather than receive what God gives?

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  Yeah, I tried to pull that in. I do think that the short answer is probably all the time, if you're like me anyway, you're probably all the time selfishly sinfully kind of a taker and not as maybe slow and patient to wait on the Lord and to consider like, well, is this actually what he wants for me and not just what I want for myself? So knowing that tendency versus if you're a more passive person and not taking, I mean some people need to hear God's command to go in, take possession. I'm giving this to you, get off the couch, get off. I've been trying to open this door for this promotion for you for a long time, and it's your fear, your insecurity, your whatever complacency that's keeping you from it. So just knowing your tendency is important with that. So anyway, yeah, that's a good one.

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  Awesome is Israel acts by sending messages to some nations and engaging in battle, but God is clearly the one who delivers. How do we balance human responsibility and dependence on God's strength at the same time?

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  Yeah, I think a lot of these next questions signs in the passage that Israel is not meant to be passive, yet not meant to be self-reliant. And I talked about that already in the sermon. I think in particular, you have almost every time at the end of chapter two, Deuteronomy and the beginning of chapter three, you get this tension, this back and forthness of. So we went and we conquered them and then do, and it'll say, because the Lord gave them into our hands. And so you get that kind language. God said, I'm giving you this land, so now go take it. So there's action, our action, and just over and over again, how do we balance the spiritual passivity, self reliance. So there's just not going to be a good short answer to human responsibility dependence on God's strength. I think that really is so much of what's going on. And again, the tension we feel and what God wants to impress upon us in these chapters is the importance of both.

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  Just one, again, a very practical application of this for us in a personal way in the recovery world, there's kind of a saying that you can't do it without God. God won't do it without you. And I think that can be helpful to internalize. I can't overcome, again, facing the giants, right? I can't just like Israel going up against the inhabitants of the em. I mean these giants literally, I can't fight stand a chance against the giant of my addiction, my sin struggle on my own. That's actually step one of the 12 step is I am totally powerless over this addiction and must therefore entrust myself to a higher power who does have, again, higher power, who God has more power over that than I do.

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  And also the recognition that he calls me to action, that he won't do it without me. It's not just a okay, so we ended by singing, I surrender all, which is true and also, but we don't surrender that. We don't surrender. Surrender is huge. I mean, surrender again, that's step one of the 12 steps is like got to surrender because I'm powerless without him. But also we can't surrender our responsibility to respond and to action in the ways that God calls us to, if you want to call it partner with him in the work of taking possession of the land, so to speak, or fighting the enemy. So yeah, I mean, you just have so many of these active verbs in Deuteronomy two and three. Go take contend with them in battle. Or you go to Ephesians six and putting on the armor of God and Colossians three, five and putting to death what is earthly in you. So there's this call to action that we don't surrender, but we do it in the full knowledge that, again, I'm not putting on my armor, I'm putting on his armor, and even to do it, I need his help. And even once the armor's on, yeah, it's got to be him empowering the fight, giving the victory. So yeah, I mean, just so much more that could be said about that. I'm not sure how helpful it is for me to keep saying the same thing in different ways, but really good questions to ponder at least.

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  Do you want to keep going down the list? Sure. Let's see what else we got. We talked about three passive reliant. We talked about passivity self. Yeah, yeah, that

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  One. Yeah. What does Deuteronomy three communicate about the seriousness of opposition to God and the danger of compromise?

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  Yeah, don't do it. Don't do either one. You oppose God. You might end up like Seaho and og. Don't harden your heart against the Lord. I think that's Hebrews, if you hear his voice today, don't want to harden your heart. You better soften your heart and listen, you don't want to be on the other side of Holy War against God. And then the danger of compromise, that's Israel, right? I mean, again, that's what we talked about, that he told 'em to annihilate the enemy, take 'em all. And with those east of the Jordan, they did Moses, that's the end of Deuteronomy two, beginning of Deuteronomy three. It's we killed all of 'em. We did it just the way he told us to. But then when they cross over west of the Jordan into Canaan with the Canaanites, the Philistines, the others there, Jebusites and all the rest parasites, now they start to compromise and they don't finish the job. And that's the book of Joshua. That's the beginning of the book of judges. And you hear it and it's like, oh wait, we're a couple of hundred years fast forwarded now in the story, and why are they still fighting? I thought they were supposed to have finished the job already, but whether that's being merciful where God didn't say be merciful or just being complacent and compromising and passive and whatever else. But again, I think the spiritual implications of that for us is we don't compromise with sin.

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  Don't leave even little 11 elevens the whole lump, Satan, all he needs. He's looking for a foothold to get in and wreck things. So don't give him a foothold. So yeah, it's

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  Good. Is there one or two that you want to add with? I know we got a bunch left.

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  Yeah, go. The New Testament enemy is not flesh and blood. Jesus teaches love for neighbors and enemies. How does that shape the way we fight today? I think I kind of just touched on that one, which is it really is that internal fight against sin. It's that fight against Satan. I am glad that Brad mentioned that kind of, again, Ephesians six, we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, don't. The Holy War today is not against the leftist or the Russians or China or, I mean, it's against our own sin and it's against powers and principalities and all that. What else does he say? Sermon. You emphasize serving God's people. What keeps us from serving joyfully sin? I think that's the short answer there. Again, maybe that's passivity, complacency. Maybe it's just selfishness, comfort. I think it can be. Brad mentions fear, fatigue, resentment, and security. I think some of those things could be at play too, depending on the specific circumstance. But I think bottom line, at the heart of all of it, the reason we don't serve others more joyfully and faithfully is just, yeah, we're too caught up on us and serving ourselves in Deuteronomy three, Moses pleased to end the land. God refuses. How do we process disappointments, unanswered prayers in a way that deepens our faith in Christ? It's really hard.

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  I think it really comes down to a matter of faith, and how much am I going to really trust God's sovereignty and his goodness, as we said yesterday, and depending on the disappointment or unanswered prayer, I mean, that can be really, really, really hard. So yeah, I'm not sure how much else I have to say about that. You mentioned Jesus also prayed in anguish, not my will, but yours. How can his submission to Father help us submit? I mean, I think that there's probably no better example. Well, there's never any better example you can look to than Jesus, but especially when it comes to submitting to God's will. I mean, if you think about of all people who've ever lived who could have asserted his own will and said, yeah, I don't like this plan. I, I'm going to go with my plan. It would've been Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, not going to the cross. If there's any other way, let this cut pass for me.

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  But I mean, yeah, that ending of his prayer there, but not my will, but yours be done. I mean that just ought to, you could just meditate on that. You could just meditate on those words on that scene of him there in the garden and his prayer and his connection, his intimacy with the Father and what's going on in Jesus' heart there. I mean, we would do well as believers to meditate on that and just how that would transform our own. Again, humility. I think when you see someone that good and perfect and powerful submitting, I think, yeah, that's everything.

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  And then the last one here is Moses wanted to enter the promised land. God refused to max this. What promised land are Christians tempted to seek today apart from the one he's prepared for us through our inheritance in Christ? I think we do it all the time, don't we? I mean, there's all kinds of other lands that we would be willing to settle for that we are often too often willing to settle for literal land. How many people are chasing the American dream of a couple acres and white picket fence and building a bigger house than I got, or the promotion or the family or the marriage or the friends reputation, the popularity, whatever it is, the vacations, the comfort. I mean, whatever it is that we are tempted to settle for in this world, I'm sure again, must have been tempting for Israel. You wonder how many of the other nine and a half tribes or kind of rethinking, well, do we really need to go west of the Jordan? I mean, maybe we could just hang out here. There's a lot of land here. I'm sure we could carve out room for a couple more tribes over here east of the Jordan, and how often are we tempted to settle for less than God's best? But yeah, so many good. Just really practical, I think lessons that we learn from their example and their time in the wilderness. And again, that's what Paul says in one Corinthians 10. These things happen to them as examples us that we might not send so much like they did. So

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  May it be so may we actually internalize their lessons and follow the Lord more faithfully.

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  So

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  Thanks, Brad.

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  Yeah, thanks Brad. Then I just written just a quick application. Lord, help me to submit to your plan.

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  Yeah,

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  Me too. It's hard to do. It's hard to do. I need God's help

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  Me to know it first and then submit to it. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks Will. Thank

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  You. We hope that this has been a beneficial and edifying listen for you as you seek to be changed and to love God more as you apply God's word after the sermon. So now go continue to apply the sermon and make disciples, and Lord willing, we'll catch you right back here next week.