The Breakdown: "It's A Different World, But You've Got It Like That"

17:30 Absolutely. Absolutely. So when we look at the book of Deuteronomy and its authorship, some scholars essentially attribute that the book was written in the 7th century before Christ enters. And many others recognize Moses as the writer of the book of Deuteronomy. Therefore, that would actually place the composition of the book well before the 7th century B.C. The Jewish name for the book of Deuteronomy is translated as words, words, words that the church say words, words, which ultimately derives from Deuteronomy chapter one, verse number one. And the word of God simply reads that these are the words of Moses, the words that Moses spake. And so that's ultimately where we get, if you will, the historical nature as far as it pertains to the etymological background of the book of Deuteronomy. And so this text, if you will, is the essence of what we would call divine revelation.

18:35 Given through Moses during the time of his leadership, God ultimately gives Moses divine revelation. Moses is spoken to directly from God. And we talk about that word revelation. That word revelation simply means to unveil truth. And so this is truth that is unveiled unto Moses and Moses speaks a word to God's people so that they too might be enlightened concerning what God has to say. So whereas Exodus, Leviticus and the book of Numbers relate to the events and provide great detail concerning both the religion and the life of Israel, Deuteronomy represents an emphasis upon that which is basically important to the Israelites in their relationship with God. Most scholars would say that the book of Deuteronomy in and of itself is the book of love, the book of love, even pastor on Sunday who did a phenomenal job at teaching and preaching the word of God by breaking everything down.

19:43 He's such a phenomenal teacher and preacher. He's a teaching preacher and teaching pastor. And so as he's breaking it down, he even attributes that word love as he's talking through the text. And so one of the central themes of Deuteronomy simply commands the Israelite community and also our community, the community that we live in today. It's really a major word for all of us. And that is deriving from Deuteronomy chapter six, verse number five, when he says, love Yahweh, your God, with all of your heart, with all of your mind, with all of your soul and with all of your might. And so the books Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers form the necessary background of what Moses gives us in his summary when we read the book of Deuteronomy. Historically, Israel's redemption from Egyptian bondage accomplished through Moses under divine guidance, which is narrated in Exodus chapter 1 all the way to chapter number 19, is essential to Moses' appeal to the new generation as he's standing there on the plains of Mount of Moab, which gives us the context of the passage on tonight.

20:58 It ultimately reflects on the God of our ancestors. And even when you look at Moses and where he is standing geographically, where he is literally standing as he is preaching a sermon to the people of God. He's literally looking forward. He can see the banks of the Jordan. He can see where God is taking them, but he also can see and he can look behind and see where God has brought them from. It is literally the embodiment of what we call Sankofa. He can look behind, but he's also looking to. And so the book takes form of a farewell address from Moses to the covenant community as it stands on the edge of a new place and a new era in the promised land of the ancestors. It calls the community to covenant faithfulness in light of a new day. So what we say all the time, God is the same God yesterday, today, and forevermore.

22:01 And so when we look at the book of Deuteronomy, the book begins with a historical recounting of the events from Sinai to the edge of the Jordan to provide context for the recounting of the law that is provided here at the center of this book. That section concludes with an exhortation for the people of God during that particular day to keep covenant, to keep word, to keep promise. And so this covenant book articulates the basis of Mosaic covenant in Exodus history and the mighty acts of God and how God calls his people and calls us to respond with covenant faithfulness on the verge of a new era. God, in other words, God keeps God's promises. God is a covenant keeping God. And even when we look at what the word covenant or what covenant means biblically, there are essentially four major covenants that we see in the Bible.

23:00 We see the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the Davidic covenant, and then, of course, the Messianic covenant in which we receive Christ. Amen. And so the biblical context to Deuteronomy chapter 33, Moses is literally, and I'm quoting pastor here, Moses is preparing to make his exit from earth and he's headed to eternity. Moses is giving words and blessings to the Israelites prior to his death. These are words literally of a dying father. this contextually is important for us because those who lived in ancient near eastern cultures they would typically fathers would do this as they are rallying up and preparing to make their transition we see this over and over and over again in scripture we have genesis chapter 27 isaac is dying and he speaks to his sons jacob and esau genesis chapter 49 jacob is dying and he calls together all of his children. Deuteronomy chapter 33. Here it is. Moses partakes in the same exact customs that we see here in the old Testament. And even in first Kings chapter two, we see King David who charges his son Solomon before he transitioned and dies. We also have, um, from a, from an academia perspective, uh, other Deuteron, uh, Deuteron canonical texts, which are found in the Apocrypha, though essentially other forms of scripture, if you will, but we would probably deem those as non-canonical texts, but deuterocanonical texts, maybe like in the Catholic Bible or in Eastern Orthodox Bibles.

24:49 A lot of times, especially those who are studying will say, hey, well, why don't we have this book and that book and this book and that book? Even when you read some of that literature, you'll see like in the book of Tobit, he calls his son Tobias, even as he's getting ready to transition. Hey, he's rallying up. And so even in a pastoral care sense, shout out to pastoral care. A lot of times, even when we experience transition in our own families, we say, granny or pawpaw or mama or daddy, they waited till I got there. And they rally up saints before they make their transition. So this is what what what Moses is essentially doing in this farewell sermon that he gives. Yeah. And so I think this particular chapter is about Moses blessing the multiple tribes. Right. But I think we have to see it in the literary context of chapter 31, Moses commissioning Joshua.

25:47 Right. And 32, he's singing his song. But he's also given a warning to the Israelites of future unfaithfulness. Because he knows he's standing on the banks looking over because he was disobedient. That's why he couldn't enter to the promised land. Right. So it's like when you look at it, it's like a warning, then the blessing. Right. Because he's also saying there's something attached to it that the blessing is just not there. It's are you in line? Are you in order? Right. And don't get out of order. Like he's saying, he's testifying, right? You know why I'm not crossing over with you because I was disobedient. Right. Exactly. So and then we move into the transition. Right. And isn't that amazing how even through our disobedience, even through our mess ups, our brokenness, God is still a covenant keeping God. I think about this text, this passage, it really shows this parallel between creation and covenant. Creation broken, we're flawed, we have strayed away from God, and even in our brokenness, God still keeps his promises.

26:50 Right, because it's not about you as an individual, it's about his promise and his commitment to what he created. Right. Right, and then we can't mess that up. Right. It's not of our doing. It's bigger than us. Right. So I think that it's important to kind of see these blessings. But it was a warning before that. Because he is a living testament. Yeah, Moses is not coming over because. It wasn't a secret. You know how it is in the black community. Everybody get through the grapevine like they said, Moses ain't coming over because he was disobedient. Right. So he's not, even though he led us through that, because the whole generation died off before they were able to go in. So it has consequences. And we'll talk a little bit more about how when Pastor was preaching. I love how he was preaching directly to our graduates. Right. So it didn't matter if it was a high school diploma or a PhD. You're still looking to go to another level in life. And it's a way in which we have to enter into that space. And we'll talk about how it's not just about an individual, but it's collective, to your point, the covenant, that we have to begin to see and read our sacred texts as communal and not individualistic.

27:49 Can you hear what Moses do? What Moses do? No, they was loud. They was sitting in the tent. But, yeah, so that's kind of the outline of 33. And you kind of go through and see all the ways in which Moses, and we'll talk more about how, and this is a third point Dr. Haines makes, I won't get ahead of it because I want to unpack that some more about all these blessings and what that means for each tribe. Because it's a tribe, it's not just the individual, right? It's Asher and the folks that belong to him and to come after him. So that's just kind of good to look at how it's broken down from the beginning to the end. So that's just trying to jump into the sermon highlights. And we thank Albany for always giving us the good old sermon highlights that we can pull from. So I'll read through these and then we'll kind of jump into some of the main points that Dr. Haynes made and how we want to kind of unpack those a little bit more. So Albany pulled these out of the sermon. Don't waste positive energy on negative people. If you have a sense of where you are, you have a sense of where you are going, you can make it through.

28:49 What are you going through cannot detour you if you don't let it and we'll talk about that too God will place the right people in your life to speak a word over you To overrule what negative people say about you or negative situations that happen to you. I would add There is something powerful about love Your possibilities are greater than your history and just be you God will provide you with security God will give you power for whatever pressures you're under. And God has a way of transforming what is done to you into something that works for you. My Lord. That's some good points. That sermon is just afresh to hear that afresh. So, Pastor Garner, let's just jump into some additional scriptures. You want to kind of move through these additional scriptures that Dr. Haynes definitely gave us that also went along with the text he preached on Sunday. Right. So if you go back and listen to Pastor Sermon in his introductory remarks, or rather in his intro remarks, as he is introducing us and preparing to introduce us to the first movement of the text, he reminds us that we've got it like that.

29:59 And we have it like that for a multiplicity of reasons. He gives us Deuteronomy chapter 28, verse 13. A he says, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail. He talked about Philippians chapter four, verse 13. He says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Psalm 27 and one, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Who shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of the stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? John chapter 16 verse 33 he then gives us this text he says I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace peace not chaos but peace in this world you will have trouble but take heart I have come so that you might overcome the world why because we got it like that. He gives us Romans eight chapter 30, uh, chapter, uh, chapter eight, verse 31. He says, what then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who, who can be against us? And then another passage or text that pastor gives us, um, is Romans chapter eight, verse 37. Um, in all of these things, we are more than conquerors through him who has loved us through Christ Jesus.

31:28 And what I love about these passages is that really, take a screenshot. If you're watching online, take a screenshot of this right now. If you're in the room, take a picture of it. These are affirmations. When you wake up in the morning and think about how we serve a covenant-keeping God, you can read these passages and remember that we do have it like that. Period.

31:53 All right. So this is what Pastor Garner pulled out of. It's interesting how you can listen to a sermon, right? And we kind of said, well, I think that's the thesis of the sermon. Because Dr. Haynes drops so much. He usually has like four or five sermons in one sermon. Right. He really does, right? But this is what we pulled out in terms of the sermon thesis from Sunday. When we become fueled with faith in God's name and realize that we've got it like that, we become ready to navigate and negotiate a different world. That's real good. Yeah. When we become fueled with faith. And that fuel with faith comes from the word of God. And you just gave us several of the scriptures that Dr. Haynes used. And when he does those runs, and that's where everybody starts standing up and they start shouting back and doing that common response because it's resonating. Yeah, that's affirmation. It's poured into. So we get poured into, right, when he's doing it. He's just not doing that because he knows the word. He's doing it because I'm depositing, right, in you.

32:47 And so it's always so powerful when he does that. And we hear him over and over again, but it still, right, resonates and works. because sometimes we need to hear it afresh based on the week we had. Exactly. Right? And sometimes it's a rough week. Rough week. It's another rough month. A rough year. So, you know, that's why we come, right? For setting up the stem of your cells together. That's why. Right? Because we drop strength from one another and from the word of God. So let's jump into the first point. I'm going to let you grab this one. Okay. So in this first point, we see the pastor says that we have supernatural possibilities rooted in our identity that will help us overcome the dysfunction. He also used the word dissing of and in our history. God, the point that Pastor was pressing in this particular space of the sermon, he is pulling out the narrative and the story of Asher.

33:46 he reminds us that God ultimately uses who we least expect to be anointed to be blessed read the text he gave us he points us right back there to verse number 24 he says about Asher he says most blessed of the sons is Asher let him be favored by his brothers let them I'm sorry let him bathe his feet in oil we can still be blessed and favored by god in spite of our brokenness a lot of times we think that because we are broken that we still can't be blessed because we are broken because we are messed up because we come from a messed up background because mama wasn't there daddy wasn't there because i had to be raised by my grandmother had to be raised by paw paw because this happened to me that i'm not blessed well that makes you even more blessed asher may have come from a broken family structure but he's still connected to the father's bloodline when you look at the historical nature of the text when we look at asher asher uh essentially he comes from not Jacob's choice of wife essentially can I make it plain church he has Jacob has four baby mamas his preference of wife right does not come from in fact Asher does not even come from her handmaiden uh to press the claim even further uh he doesn't even come from the second wife's handmaiden i mean uh from second wife he comes from the second wife's handmaiden technically the first wife and so but not his first choice asher is the son of jacob uh but but but but

35:55 he's from the wife essentially that was not his primary pick a pastor talked about that And so Asher comes from Zilpha. And here it is. He comes from what some people would say the bottom of the bottom. The person who you least expect. The last person on his roster.

36:18 That's the mama of Asher. However, that in spite of the dysfunction of his family. In spite of the brokenness of his family. in spite of how his family structure is set up he has it's 12 boys and one girl out of all of his siblings here it is asher and the bible says that he is the one who is favored this reminds us that even in our brokenness god can still use us to be a great blessing and a lot of times it's not who we think it is who shall be the blessed one go back you look at you look you even look and read the narrative the biblical narrative i mean think about it you even got joseph in there you would think that joseph was blessed of the blessed but he says no asher is the one the one whom you least expect and so asher regardless of how much people uh could have absolutely projected upon him for reasons why he should not have been the most blessed or the most or the one who is favored or preferred he still comes from the father's bloodline and I don't know who I'm talking to tonight but that's a reminder that in spite of how messed up your family might be that because you still come from the bloodline of the father, God still has his hand on your life.

37:57 He still has his hand on your life. And I would even say sometimes dysfunction may not be from a family system, but it could be how you've been treated by others. Right. I think about people who are bullied in school, how that can really mess with a young child's mind. how they see themselves, how they value themselves, how they understand their identity, who they are. So it's also the ways in which we can recover that. How God can still use you and bring you out. And to say that you are valued despite what the bullies may have said about you and what they did to you. So I think we also expand that beyond, I mean, definitely this is about the family system, but I think we also look at the other ways that people can have a form of dysfunctionality based on what happens to them as they move through life. And that can happen at any stage of life. Right. And people can oftentimes drop seeds of discouragement and disappointment into your spirit, which can cause you to feel like you are not blessed or favored. Right.

38:59 Again, they'll look at your life, project onto you based on their traumas that they have not yet dealt with. And they'll look at your life and find reasons to say why you're not blessed and why they should be blessed or whatever the case might be. And they can project it upon you. And they sow seeds of discouragement. And so, Pastor, even on Sunday. Doubt yourself. Right. Right. Yeah. And so on Sunday, Pastor, he's preaching. And it was so fitting contextually to the graduates because as they are entering into a new phase and a new season of life, all of them and even all of us who were listening are reminded that in spite of our history in spite of what was in spite of where you came from in spite of how broken your past might be god can still have his hand on your life and you can be walking in god's oil and his anointing we'll talk about that a little bit later a little bit later yes or anything else on point one uh i I guess I would say, um, even when you look at that, I mean, there, there are a multiplicity of biblical examples, right. That point us to, um, how God has a way of favoring and blessing those who you least expect. Um, I think about even, uh, David, uh, David, he's on the backside of his father's pastors, minding his business. He's probably twiddling his thumbs. He has his feet probably kicked up on one of the sheep's back. He's chilling, probably whistling. And the Bible tells us that the prophet shows up with a heifer in hand, ready to give a sacrifice, ready to anoint the next king. He calls all the brothers forth. None of them are the next king.

40:49 And he says, is there another? They send for David. David comes skipping down as the Bible describes with his handsome self and here he goes rolling up on his brothers and his fathers and the oil pours out and so it is oftentimes who you least expect to be favored by God in spite of dysfunction and and even when you look at the narrative of David uh how dysfunctional it is to look at somebody or judge based on the outer appearance instead of looking at somebody it.