A Feast of Every Word

Walter Henegar | Jan 14, 2024

Deuteronomy 8:1-20 (ESV)

“The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. 2 And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.4 Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. 6 So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9 a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10 And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.


11 “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, 12 lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15 who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. 17 Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ 18 You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19 And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. 20 Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.


Sermon Summary

To live ”not by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” includes obeying God’s moral laws, but never stops there. It also means trusting his commitment to bless us abundantly with literal food and every other material thing we need. Scripture is a feast that orients us to all of life: Who God is, who we are, why we are here, and where it’s all going. Above all, it means trusting in The Word, Jesus, whose life, death and resurrection is the interpretive key to understanding every other word from God. When the fulness of God’s Word “dwells richly in us” (Colossians 3:16), we lack no good thing.

Discussion Questions

  1. What stood out or stuck with you from the sermon?
  2. Describe your history with the Bible. Any low points? High points? Significant shifts in how the Bible has affected your spiritual life?
  3. What aspects of God’s Word do you tend to hear most easily, and what aspects do you tend to forget?
  4. Reread vs. 17-18. To what extent do you tend to credit your blessings exclusively to your own hard work? How does this affect the way you view other people?
  5. What practical tools, habits or strategies can you share with the group that help you to ““let the word of Christ dwell in you richly”?


Resources Consulted

  • Africa Bible Commentary, ed. Tokunboh Adeyowo
  • The Message of Deuteronomy, Raymond Brown
  • Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone, John Goldingay