The Sermon for Sunday, July 13th, 2025, the Fourth Sunday after Trinity
The Lessons: Psalm 25:1-14; Deuteronomy 30:9-14; Luke 10:25-37
The Text: Deuteronomy 30:9-14
INTRODUCTION
In September 2006, Matt Atkinson’s three friends told him they were plotting a Columbine-style attack on their school. They would ignite bombs near bathrooms, set fire to exits, then shoot any of the fifteen hundred students and staff they didn’t like.
Atkinson was torn. Though his friends’ threats sounded serious, he wasn’t certain they were genuine. Could he risk getting his friends into major trouble over what might turn out to be a joke? That night he talked to his mother.
The following morning – one day before his friends had scheduled their attack – Atkinson followed his mother’s advice and talked to the school’s assistant principal. Law enforcement officials immediately intervened. After taking the three would-be attackers into custody, police searched their homes. They found shocking confirmation of the intended assault: suicide notes, a large cache of weapons, ammunition, camouflage clothing, helmets, and gas masks.
When news of the foiled attack became public, Atkinson was lauded as a hero. “Do the right thing,” he said, downplaying the incident. “That’s all I can say: do the right thing. There’s no harm in telling somebody about it. I didn’t do it for fame. I had fear for the life of my fellow students at East High School.”
Atkinson did the right thing because he had a proper view of the consequences of his inaction – not just for his fellow students, but for the attackers and himself. “If it wasn’t true,” he said, “at least they’d get the help they needed. If I didn’t go, and they were serious, I couldn’t live with that on my conscience.”
– Hugh Poland, “Courageous Student Prevents School Shooting,” PreachingToday.com;
Source: “Student Talks of Breaking Up Bomb Plot,”
MSNBC.com (September 21, 2006)
DEUTERONOMY 30:9-14: GOD’S WORD IS NEAR YOU
Doing the right thing is the theme of our First Lesson today. The blessings of abundance God promises the people of Israel in the opening verse of our Lesson will be a result of the nation turning back to God with all their heart and soul (Deuteronomy 30:2) even during their exile to all the nations among which they have been dispersed. So that the source and reason of their blessings may be clear in their minds, this condition is repeated:
If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.
(Deuteronomy 30:10, KJV)
They had to listen to the Lord their God, who was calling them to obey his commandments and statutes written in “this book of the law” (the Book of Deuteronomy), and to turn to the Lord their God wholeheartedly. Doing the right thing results from firmly resolving to do the right thing and following through with that intention. It was not a matter only of keeping God’s commandments, but of fully intending and resolving to do so.
Then Moses proceeds to address the question whether perhaps God’s commandments were hidden from Israel or inaccessible to them. In answer to this, he declares:
For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off.
(Deuteronomy 30:11, KJV)
The Law of God had been given them, and the Book of Deuteronomy rehearsed in summary all the laws of God that were necessary for Israel to keep. Parents were commanded to teach their children these commandments and they and their children had to obey them. The ongoing family instruction in God’s laws would prevent the laws of God from being hidden from them, or inaccessible. The commandment was not up in heaven that it had to be brought down, or across the seas, that someone had to sail in a ship to fetch it (Deuteronomy 30:12-13). Instead, God gives Israel this assurance:
But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.
(Deuteronomy 30:14, KJV)
Now, in this context in Deuteronomy, the word refers to God’s commandments given in the Book of Deuteronomy, and one might add, in the whole of the Pentateuch, or first five books of the old Testament.
St. Paul, writing in Romans 10:6-8, interprets Deuteronomy 30:12-14 differently, not as God’s commandments, but as the message of the Gospel, the word that leads to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. If we combine St. Paul’s interpretation and the application of our First Lesson to obedience to God’s Law, we can conclude that just as the word of faith, which we confess as a result of hearing and believing the Gospel, brings us salvation, so the word of God’s commandment sanctifies us as we obey it, and brings us the blessings of God in Christ, while we yield ourselves to Christ more and more as a living sacrifice.
CONCLUSION AND APPLICATION
Today, both God’s commandments and the Gospel, as well as the whole word and revelation of God as we have it in the Bible, are not inaccessible to us or far from us, but in our mouth and in our heart, so that we may obey and apply them. Why do I say this? Ancient Israel relied on oral teaching and the scrolls of the Torah and the Prophets. Today, Biblical translators have a wide variety of extant manuscripts to use in translating the Bible from its original Hebrew (OT) and Greek (NT). Today the Bible is as close to us as our computers and cell phones, and the Bible is available digitally and in print in many different versions and languages.
To do the right thing by keeping God’s commandments, we must know his commandments, and the presence of God’s word is all around us, if we will just turn to God with all our heart, mind, and soul, and read, study, obey, and apply his word, teaching it to others also.