Deuteronomy 31:1-8
June 12, 2022
preached by Scott Sottosanti
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Time of Reflection Quotations

“Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because… it is the quality which guarantees all others.”

~ Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British Prime Minister who led England through WWII

“Deep within all of us there is a yearning to be brave…Like all of our deepest, truest and best yearning, it comes from how we were made. Courage – the power to do the right thing even when it is scary and hard – resonates deeply with the original shape of our soul.”

“Jesus beckons me to follow him to that place of weakness where I risk the vulnerability of a child so that I might know how strong my Father is and how much he loves me. But truth be told, I would rather be an adult. I’d rather be in a place where I can still pull things together if God doesn’t show up, where I risk no ultimate humiliation, where I don’t have to take the shallow breaths of desperation. And as a result, my experience of my heavenly Father is simply impoverished.”

“Jesus asks parents to make yet another choice. Are we raising our children to be safe or to be brave? Are we raising our children to be smart or to be loving? Are we raising them to be successful or significant? How does God raise his children? …Sometimes I simply want my kids to escape suffering. But if I keep them completely safe, they will never have a chance to be truly good or brave. Is that what I want?”

~ Gary A. Haugen (1963-present), founder of International Justice Mission

“In the metaverse you just walk away, you don’t learn to negotiate. You don’t learn to have the complex life and the complex love that are the things we really need to live a better life, and now more than ever before… And what happens in virtual community is that people tend and trend to go to places where there is no friction, where you’re with people, where you don’t need to have that quality of the real. That’s very, very troubling, because that’s exactly what we don’t need.”

~ Sherry Turkle (1948-present), Psychologist at MIT

“He who dares to face his Maker will not tremble before the sons of men.”

~ CH Spurgeon (1834-1892), famous London preacher

“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”

~ 2 Timothy 1:7

Sermon Passage

Deuteronomy 31:1-8 (ESV)

¹ So Moses continued to speak these words to all Israel. ² And he said to them, “I am 120 years old today. I am no longer able to go out and come in. The Lord has said to me, ‘You shall not go over this Jordan.’ ³ The Lord your God himself will go over before you. He will destroy these nations before you, so that you shall dispossess them, and Joshua will go over at your head, as the Lord has spoken. ⁴ And the Lord will do to them as he did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, when he destroyed them. ⁵ And the Lord will give them over to you, and you shall do to them according to the whole commandment that I have commanded you. ⁶ Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”

⁷ Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it. ⁸ It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”