Invite your attention tonight
to the book of Deuteronomy chapter 28. Deuteronomy chapter 28. Here in Deuteronomy chapter 28, Start reading in verse one. And it shall come to pass, if
thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy
God, to observe and to do all his commandments, which I command
thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high
above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall
come on thee and overtake thee if thou shalt hearken unto the
voice of the Lord thy God. Blessed shalt thou be in the
city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall
be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and
the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kind, and the
flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and
thy store. Blessed shalt thou be when thou
comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out. The heading on the top of my
page says, Blessings for Obedience. We ought to be obedient. In life, there's a lot of obedience
that we would be wise to do. What obedience could possibly
be more important than obedience to God? Now listen to what our
text said. All God's blessings can be had
by observing to do all His commandments, by hearkening to Him and doing
all His commandments. If we do this, we can have all
His blessings. Now let me say this a different
way. If we do not fully obey all of God's commandments, We will not be blessed of God. Won't be. Now we're about to observe the
Lord's table. We're about to do this in remembrance
of him, our Lord, our Savior. Why? Because we cannot obey God's
commandments. And we need a savior. God has
revealed to us in mercy that we cannot earn his blessings. We cannot merit his favor. It said, hearken diligently unto
the voice of the Lord thy God. Who here's done that? Not a one
of us. We're flesh, we can't. He that
hath an ear to hear, let him hear. God's gotta give the ear.
We're flesh, we can't enter into, we can't understand the things
of God, unless the arm of the Lord is pleased to reveal these
things to us, as you just read. We can't observe and do God's
commandments. God's commandments are holy. We're sinful, we're sinners. It's not in us to keep his commandments. We're contrary, our flesh is
contrary opposed to God and everything about God. These verses, these
verses that we just read, we're gonna look at them for just a
minute. They declare somebody. I don't look to these verses
to see something for me to do by which to obtain God's blessings.
I look to these verses by God's grace, seeing Christ. And I pray
we all will. You see, there is just one, who
has hearkened diligently unto the voice of the Lord God, and
it's not us. There is just one who has observed
and done all of God's commandments. There's just one. There is just
one whom, as the end of verse one says, the Lord has set on
high above all nations of the earth. There is just one blessed
man, and that's the God-man, Christ Jesus, our Lord. We do this, we observe this table
in remembrance of Him because He is our salvation. We heard
it so plainly this morning, salvation's of the Lord. He is our salvation. Here's the commands, hearken.
hear, believe. In order for us to hear, he enables
us to hear. He is the author and finisher
of the faith that hears and believes and calls on him. Observe and
do. Christ came to do what we could
never do for ourselves. We could never obey God. We could
never obtain God's blessing. But Christ came and he did it
for us. He kept God's holy law. He magnified
it and made it honorable for us. And by the faith He gives
us, we establish the law in Him. He did it for us. He's the Lord,
our righteousness. What righteousness do we have?
Him. There's just one. He's it. God has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Him. Right there again,
verse one, He set thee on high above all nations on the earth.
We're seated in heavenly places in Christ, with Christ, right
now. and I love to know it. Look here
at verse three again. Blessed shalt thou be in the
city and blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall be
the fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy ground and the fruit
of thy cattle, the increase of thy kind and the flocks of thy
sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and
thy store. Blessed shalt thou be when thou
comest in and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out. Don't
you desire to be blessed? How many times do we just read
the word blessed, blessed, blessed? I wanna be blessed of God, I
really do. Now, again, we read this and
we think of ourselves and we see something to do, don't we?
Can't help it. This is speaking of Christ. Oh my God, open our eyes to see
Christ here. May God cause us to look away
from self and what must I do to be saved and look to him who
saved us completely. Now, the heading on the other
page I'm looking at here says the curses for disobedience.
If we try to save ourselves, if we leave this place, if we
die trusting in ourselves that we've saved ourselves, this will
no doubt be our end. Cursed. Not blessed. You know, it saddens
me. I know so many people who are
just steeped and lost in religion. And I'll ask them how they're
doing, and they'll say, blessed. And I think, I really hope you
are. I really hope you are. Because
the fact of the matter is, many think they're blessed when they're
not. I don't want that for us. I don't want that for anybody.
I want us to know Christ and be saved. I want us to see that
all the blessings are in Him, that He is the blessing. He's
the blessed one. Now, let's quickly consider Christ.
and his body, okay? We're gonna look at a couple
scriptures and I'm gonna quote some scripture, okay? A body
was prepared for him. A body prepared for God. Came
in the likeness of man. He was born of a virgin. He fulfilled
the Old Testament prophecies of his coming. He came and he
went about doing good every day everywhere he went. He healed
all manner of sickness. He knew no sin. I'll tell you
what else he did. He hearkened diligently unto
the voice of the Lord God. He came not to do his own will,
but the will of him that sent him. From a young age, he said,
I must be about my father's business. From his youth, his face was
set like a flint towards the cross. That's why he came. Christ, he observed, he kept
every single commandment. Every single one. And yet, as
the appointed hour of his death, ordained by God, appointed by
God, as that hour approached, he told his disciples, take,
eat, this is my body which is broken for you, this do in remembrance
of me. As our substitute. In agony,
our Lord was in the garden, sweating, as it were, great drops of blood. The body of God sweat great drops
of blood for his people. Our Savior's precious body that
was so beautifully anointed shortly before this was beaten, Marred more than any man, we
can't imagine how bad. He was nailed to a cross? God. Crucified between two malefactors,
two convicted criminals? Now I really have a hard time
entering into this. The body of God Almighty gave up the ghost. How do we explain that? The body
of God Almighty was buried in a tomb. God, this is who we're
remembering. When we take this bread, we're
remembering the body of God, God who came in a body for us,
what He endured for us. But I love to know this, on that
third glorious day, He arose, He arose victorious. He arose
because he got the job done. He accomplished something. Everything
he came to do, he accomplished a blessing for his people. The
blessing. You see why we do this in remembrance
of him? If it was about us, why would we even bother? It's not
about us. It's all about him. Now, I want to show you something
wonderful here. This is what led me to this text.
Look at verse four again. Deuteronomy 28 verse four. Blessed
shall be the fruit of thy body. Now again, this is speaking of
Christ. Blessed shall be the fruit of
Christ's body. Now the word fruit here means
offspring. The fruit of the body of Christ. is His offspring, His children,
His elect people. Scripture's worded a few different
ways. The offspring of God, the seed which the Lord hath blessed,
the children of the living God. And I love every single one of
those. Oh, to be one of God's children. Turn with me to Hebrews
chapter two. Hebrews chapter two. Verse nine. But we see Jesus, who was made
a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death crowned
with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God should taste
death for every man. Now, we know that Christ did
not die for all mankind. I don't feel the need to elaborate
on this because the very next verses are gonna show that to
us very clearly. Look at verse 10. For it became him for whom
are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many
sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect
through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth
and they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he
is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name
unto my brethren. In the midst of the church will
I sing praise unto thee, and again I will put my trust in
him, and again behold I and the children which God hath given
me. Do you not just adore that? He said, many sons. He said,
my brethren. Christ is the firstborn among
many brethren. the children which God hath given
me." God gave Christ children. That's who he came to save. That's
for whom he tasted death, his children, his children. That
is the fruit of our Lord's body, his children. That's the reason
he came and suffered and bled and died. was for his children,
to bring many sons to glory, to be the captain of their salvation,
to make us one with him. That's why he came. As we take this bread and may
God enable us to truly remember him, you remember that. You remember
why he came. We just sang the song, how can it be, how can
it be that God should love a soul like me? Honestly, how can it
be? That he in tenderness would come
and seek us? To be with him, his spotless
bride? We're his children and we're
his bride. The father chose a bride for his son. If we're blessed, it's because
of Christ. It's because of his hearkening
diligently unto God. It's because of His perfect obedience
unto death, even the death of the cross. It's because of Him
and Him alone. Because His body was broken for
us. Because His body was broken for
us. His blessed, holy, perfect, pure, spotless body was broken
for us. We, the fruit of His body, shall
be forever blessed. And nothing can ever change that.
We can't mess it up because He hath perfected us forever. Amen. Let's pray.