Deuteronomy 10:12-13          Confirmation             May 3, 2009

A young man was trying to make the basketball team. He said, “Lord, I pray that you make me two times faster than I am now.” So the Lord said “Poof!” And immediately, the boy could run two times faster than before.  The next week, the boy said “Lord, I pray that you would make me two times stronger than I am now.” So the Lord went “Poof!” And the boy was two times stronger than he was before.”  Then the young man said “Lord, I pray that you would make me two times smarter than I was before. So the Lord went “Poof!” And He turned him into a girl!

Today we are gathered together to celebrate what God is doing in the lives of four young girls. We are here as witnesses as they make their confirmation vows. I’m very proud of this class. I have enjoyed my time with these four young women this past spring.  We have spent our Sunday afternoons together.  We have traveled together.  We have shared meals together.  I have enjoyed being their Confirmation teacher.  But now that time is finished.  Our Confirmation Class is done and I am no longer in that role.  However, I pray that your journey is not finished.  You see, Confirmation is not graduation.  It is only the beginning of your Christian life. 

In our scripture today, we’re in the fifth and last book of Moses. Deuteronomy chapter 10.   Here we find Moses who is 120 years old. He’s not going to be around much longer. So he writes the book of Deuteronomy to remind the people of how God wants them to live.

 You see, these people had also been through a Confirmation class of sorts.  But it was a much longer class than just one spring season.  Forty years before, the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt.  We all know the story.  By the power of God, they were led by Moses to freedom from Egypt.  Like a baptism, they were led through the waters of the Red Sea.  And yet, they were not yet ready to enter into the promised land of their future.  They had much to learn about God and how to live as free people.  So they spent forty years with Moses in training in the wilderness.

  You know, we all need training to live the ways of God.  These people are given the ten commandments as a way to live.  Now many people look at these rules of God as somehow binding, somehow confining.  The commands of God seem to keep up from doing what we want to do.  But listen.  These commands are to set us free.  The people of Israel were slaves.  They were bound.  They were chained.  And folks, when we live away from God, we too will be slaves, bound, and chained by the problems of this world.  I have lost count of the people in their thirties and forties who come to talk to me who thought they wanted to do whatever they wanted to do back when they were young.  They thought they would be free from all the rules.  But now they are slaves to so many problems.  The people of Israel knew all about slavery.  For four hundred years, they knew how to live as slaves.  But they did not know how to live as free people in a promised land.  So God gave them His instructions.  God gave them training.  We all need instructions and training to live as free people.

  And so now, Moses is at the end of his life.  Soon Joshua will lead these people into that promised land of true freedom.  But before Moses lets them go, he gives them some final words.  Deuteronomy is an instruction manual.  Moses lays out the way of life and the way of death.  And he urges the people when they come to their new land that the will choose life.  He will not be with them any longer.  He prays they will choose the way of life.

     Let me say to you four girls who have come today to be confirmed as adult members of this congregation that you have a promised land in front of you.  Let me say to so many young people and not so young people here today that you have a promised land in front of you.  There is a life of abundance and goodness and joy to be found our there if you will choose the way of life.  But there is sorrow, trouble, and failure if you choose the way of death.  

  Last night as we met together, these girls prayed that Christ would enter their lives to be part of all they do and all they are.   I know many of you have prayed that same pray in the past.  But that prayer is not the end of the journey.  No more than escaping from Egypt was the end of the journey for Israel.  The promised land was still in front of them.  To receive God into your life is to begin a journey.  It is a daily, even hourly, journey to choose.  Because each day you must choose.  No one can choose for you.  You must choose how you will live.  Who will be your friends?  What will be your goals?  Only you can choose.  And you will choose.  The choice is thrust before us each day.  Will we choose life or will we choose death? 

  Can you just see this old man, Moses?  All these years, he has led these people.  He has faced the king of Egypt for these people.  He has led them through hard times.  But now, his time is done.  And with his parting words, he says to them, “O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?”