Deuteronomy 8

[0:00] you again in this new 2017. Since Sunday fell on New Year's Day, some of you probably weren't here last week, so we're going to do New Year all over again.

[0:12] No, I'm not kidding, but we're going to, but this morning I do want to talk a little bit about thinking about the New Year and coming up. I don't know what you think about New Year's resolutions.

[0:25] Anyone a fan? You don't have to raise your hand. The Guilty can, I'm not a big fan of them, to be honest with you. It feels like they're mostly more wishful aspirations than actual commitments, and I think they often can lure us with false hopes of instant change when it doesn't really happen.

[0:51] But having said all that, I do think that New Year and the change of the season gives us an opportunity to reflect, to reflect on where we've been in the past year and to reflect on where we are going in the future.

[1:06] So I want to begin this morning by asking you a few questions. What have the last 12 months held for you? What trials have you faced?

[1:16] What hard things as part of life in a fallen world have you walked through? Where have you seen your own failures and your sin rear its ugly head in your life?

[1:31] What joys have you had? Where have there been things to celebrate, to rejoice in, to throw a party for? What successes and victories have you seen in your life?

[1:44] Where have you seen God's faithful love for you expressed in this past year? And when have you felt like you've walked alone in the darkness?

[1:57] Reflecting back is part of what we do in New Year's. The other part is looking ahead. Where are we going? What does the future hold? So let me ask you this.

[2:09] What do you worry about as you look ahead to the year? Where do you find fear creeping in and gripping your heart with its iron fist?

[2:22] What are you hoping for? What do you anticipate seeing good things in parts of your life? What parts of your life are you despairing that change will never happen?

[2:37] And where do you see, with eager anticipation, hope that you might grow and change and explore something new this coming year?

[2:49] I don't know if you've thought about those questions. I don't know if you've taken time to do that. I don't always. Sometimes it's just another week, another day in the long span of life.

[3:03] But I've actually set aside some time this coming week to think about these things and reflect upon them. So I don't come to you with all, having all of my answers full out.

[3:15] But I hope that you might consider joining me in doing that. As we think about these things, as we think about these questions, as we reflect back on the last year and as we look ahead to the new year.

[3:29] I was meditating on this and wanted to reflect a little bit this morning to you about what God might have to say to us in the midst of this process.

[3:42] So we're going to look for a few minutes at Deuteronomy chapter 8. It's page 152 in your pew Bibles. If you want to turn there, we'll be reading it in a few minutes. But as you turn there, let me just give a little bit of context.

[3:56] If you've forgotten where we're at in Deuteronomy 8, which of course is not a part of a series, which we're usually doing. So maybe you have. Deuteronomy 8 is where Moses is now speaking again to the people of God.

[4:09] They have wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. And he is speaking now to a new generation because the old generation of Israelites, most of them have died off in the wilderness as a part of God's judgment on their unbelief 40 years ago when they would not enter the land in faith because of their fear.

[4:33] And they're now standing on the plains of Moab. And Moses is recounting to them what God has done and reminding them of who God has been for them as they're about to cross the Jordan River and enter into the promised land.

[4:48] And in the book of Deuteronomy, he's restating what God has already done for them and said to them to prepare them to be his covenant people as they enter into the land that he has prepared for them to live in.

[5:06] So that's the context of Deuteronomy 8. Let's go ahead and look at it together and we'll read it and pray before we continue.

[5:16] So Deuteronomy chapter 8. 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.

[5:31] And you shall remember the whole way the Lord your God has led you these 40 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.

[5:46] 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.

[6:02] Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these 40 years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you.

[6:15] So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him, 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 the hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 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, and you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

[6:59] 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.

[7:10] Lest when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, 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, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there is no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, 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.

[7:54] Beware lest you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth. 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.

[8:12] 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 will surely perish 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.

[8:36] Let's pray together. Let's pray together. Lord, as we look at your word this morning, I pray.

[8:50] I pray for your spirit to be at work in us. Lord, to make us soft-hearted and eager to listen to your voice. Lord, I pray that you would enlighten our eyes and our minds and our hearts this morning with the truth of your word.

[9:13] Encourage us. Strengthen us. Lord, prepare us for the year ahead with this word. Lord, I pray for your help this morning.

[9:25] Lord, I pray that my words would be pleasing to you. And Lord, would be useful to encourage all of us as you speak to us. We pray these things in Jesus' name.

[9:37] Amen. Amen. What Moses is telling to the people of Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 8 is what I believe he's telling us today similarly.

[9:52] That as they prepare to go into the promised land, as we prepare to go into our new year, we'll get to whether that's going to look like the promised land or not, as we enter in.

[10:05] The most important thing, the greatest thing for us to do is to remember the Lord. Now, that's a really simple sentence, isn't it?

[10:18] Remember the Lord. It seems almost empty of real significance. It seems like maybe it's too simple.

[10:29] Maybe it's not very productive or practical to be encouraged to remember the Lord. But what I want to do is that as we look at this chapter, I think we'll see that actually remembering the Lord is a very rich concept that Moses is encouraging them.

[10:43] And with lots of nuances and dynamics for us to consider as we think about it. And as we face the realities of our lives, both good and hard, and as we face the contours of our own character, both faithful and unfaithful, we will see that remembering the Lord will bear great fruit in our life and will do us great good.

[11:07] And so, we're going to look at this chapter this morning. We're going to think about two things. First of all, how we are to remember the Lord as we face various circumstances.

[11:20] And secondly, we're going to think about how remembering the Lord shapes our character and our lives. So first of all, let's think about how, as Moses talked to the people of Israel, how he speaks to us about how remembering the Lord is important as we face various circumstances.

[11:40] And obviously, this chapter's laid out. There are two things. These people are coming out of the desert and they are going into the promised land. So let's look at what he says about both of those things.

[11:52] First of all, he says, remember the Lord in his faithfulness to you in the desert. Look with me again. I want you to have your text open so you can look with me this morning because the words are rich.

[12:04] Look with me in verses two through four. Remember the way he led you. Remember the particular ways that he provided for you and showed his faithfulness in the middle of it.

[12:21] Remember the story of the exodus and remember the story of the wandering in the wilderness. God had raised up a great people and then he removed them from Egypt.

[12:34] He delivered them from oppression, from slavery. He took them out from under the thumb of a brutal and oppressive regime. And he led them into the wilderness promising to take them to a promised land, a place where they would be fully provided for and free to be God's people and worship them.

[12:53] Moses reminds them, in the middle though, you had to walk through a desert. Maybe up to a million people walking through a desert.

[13:06] If you were a logistics expert, you might ask, how is that possible? Where will these people get the things that they need simply to live?

[13:17] Water? Food? Food. Moses reminds them, God provided for you. God provided for you supernaturally.

[13:30] God provided for you in ways where there was no human hope of provision, where there was no fallback plan. There was no, well, I hope God comes through, but if he doesn't come through, I could probably still make it because my 401k is good, my pantry is stocked, or whatever it is.

[13:51] There is no fallback plan in these circumstances. And God came through. He brought water out of a rock. He gave to them manna, which was food that was supernatural food.

[14:12] There's no other way to explain it. God simply provided for them every day the food just for that day. And he did it to them while they grumbled and complained all the way.

[14:30] Why did you lead us out here? God, the desert is so hard. Oh, we would have been better as slaves in Egypt. At least we had food. Grumbling and complaining and questioning God's ability to care for them over and over again.

[14:47] And they were to remember. They were to remember the way that God had cared for them. Even their clothes did not wear out. Have you thought about that? Does anyone have a 40-year-old piece of clothing that they still wear?

[15:02] And that's in the modern age. You're not wearing it every day walking through a desert. God provided for them in remarkable ways.

[15:15] He showed his goodness to them and his faithfulness to them. He said, I remember you. I have not forsaken you. I am with you. Friends, I wondered this morning if you can look back on your last year and think about God's goodness.

[15:38] If you could think about God's faithfulness. If you could sit down and start jotting down, this is the way God has provided for me. Some of you will find that very easy.

[15:49] Some of you may find it more difficult because the thing facing you is the lack and not the abundance. But I'll bet if you stop and think, you could fill not just a column but page after page after page of how God has cared for you in the last year.

[16:17] It's not easy for me to do this. I feel like I've been led into my own personal wilderness for the last couple of years.

[16:31] I still walk missing my wife who passed away two years ago. Every day. I wish my circumstances were different.

[16:43] I wish I wasn't in the desert. But when I stop and I begin to think, I think about how my children seem to be thriving.

[16:56] I think of the financial provision where I have a home. God has taken care of my every physical need. I think of the love of this church and the community that has surrounded me and supported me.

[17:11] I think of my own family and my wife's family and the way that they have stood by me and given sacrificially to me.

[17:22] I think of the way that God has encouraged me at just the times I needed it. Friends who have reached out at just the right times, who have been there for the long haul.

[17:35] I could go on and on and on but I think that God has been so good to me in the midst of the desert that I've been walking through.

[17:48] And for some of you, you may listen to me and think, your desert sounds like a promised land compared to what I've walked through this year. Which is the funny thing, isn't it? We all have our own deserts and our own promised lands, don't we?

[18:02] And yet, and yet, God has shown his faithfulness to you. He is the one who gives life and breath in all things.

[18:14] So Moses calls us to remember that. As we've walked through the desert, God has been faithful.

[18:28] Moses goes on, he says more to us. He says that not only are you to remember God when you're walking in the desert, to remember how he has cared for you in the midst of that, but then he turns and he says, maybe your life isn't a desert.

[18:42] In fact, you're about to go into the promised land. And he describes this promised land. Look with me again, verse 7 and following. And picture if you've been walking in a desert for 40 years.

[18:57] I'm not a desert person. I didn't grow up in the desert. I've barely ever been to a desert. Some of you have seen a real desert and can imagine this. The closest thing I can think of it is I've been watching Star Wars with my kids and if you've seen The Force Awakens, one of the main characters, Rey, she grows up on a planet where there is only sand.

[19:20] It is a whole desert planet. And do you remember the line when she gets into a spaceship and she ends up in another planet that has lakes and mountains and greenery?

[19:31] She says, I never knew there was so much green in the whole galaxy. this is what Moses is saying to the people of God as they're standing on the brink of the Jordan River.

[19:45] Look across. Do you see what's there? It has water, brooks, streams, pools, rivers.

[20:00] It has growing things, wheat and barley, food to eat. You're able to grow plants to feed yourself. And he goes on and he talks about all these different things of abundance.

[20:17] In fact, it feels like he almost runs out. He's trying to sort of say everything you have, everything you would ever want, everything you would ever need, olive trees and honey and bread without eating.

[20:28] And when he gets to verse 9, he says, and you will lack nothing. In verse 10, and you will eat and you will be full. You who have walked in the desert for 40 years, God is about to take you into this place of incredible abundance where every desire and every need will be filled.

[20:51] But interestingly, he doesn't say, well then, it'll be easy, right? Then it'll be easy to thank God. He actually says the opposite, doesn't he?

[21:02] He says, when you go in, be careful. Be careful that you don't fail to remember God. Be careful that you don't forget God when things are really good.

[21:24] Have you seen this in your own life? Have you seen this in your own life? Have you ever noticed that when things get really bad?

[21:35] When life is really hard? When a situation you care about just gets completely out of your control? How easy it is to pray? How easy it is to say, God, help me!

[21:48] Because we don't have a choice. We don't have anything else. But when life is good, when everything seems to be going well, the bank account is healthy, the family is getting along, work seems to be a general success, you have friends, you enjoy, how easy it can be to forget, to remember the Lord.

[22:19] How easy it can be to slip into the thinking that Moses exposes in this, when we lift up our hearts and we think, look what we have done, I have built a good life, I have done these great things, look what my hands have built, look what my hands have provided.

[22:41] How easy it can be to think that the good things come because we deserve this, we've worked hard, we should get these things. And we forget, as he says in verse 16, or verse 18, that it is the Lord, it is the Lord who gives us the power to gain these things, that everything we have comes from him.

[23:15] Everything. So friends, I wonder as we think about it, I don't know what your next year is going to look like.

[23:27] I don't know whether it's going to feel more like a desert or more like a promised land. It might feel like a little bit of both, that's often true I think. In some parts of our life it feels like a desert, other parts of our life it feels like a promised land.

[23:46] But what Moses wants us to see is to remember that every, in every circumstance we are to remember the Lord because he will be faithful, because he will be good, because everything that we have, the good things that we have, and the hard things that we have, are all from his hand.

[24:07] When things are hard, he will provide for us. And when things are good, he has provided for us. And everything that is ours there comes from him.

[24:18] how are we to do this? Well, you know, it's funny, the basic spiritual disciplines of the Christian life are an awfully good way to think about it.

[24:38] When you stop and eat a meal, do you stop and give thanks? Do you recognize this food has come from God's hand to feed you in this moment and in this day?

[24:50] That would be a great thing for you to spend some time cultivating that practice and then cultivating that prayer to get beyond a rote, thank you for this meal, amen, to actually allowing it to be a time of thanksgiving for you, for your family, for your friends as you pray.

[25:09] Gosh, God has been so good to us today. Let's be thankful about those things. remembering the Lord. Things like fasting.

[25:22] Fasting is setting aside something that's good that God has given us so that we'll remember that it comes from him and so that we'll remember that our hearts, as much as we love the things that he gives us, we want the Lord more than that and that's why we sometimes fast from things, just to train our heart and to remember.

[25:50] I read on a blog last week about someone who's spent their year with a book at their dinner table and they write down every day an account of God's blessing, an account of God's faithfulness to them.

[26:05] Maybe you'd consider doing that. If you don't have a family, maybe it wouldn't be the dinner table, but maybe in your personal devotions or prayers before bed.

[26:18] Simple Christian devotion can go a long way to cultivate this remembering the Lord and his goodness and his faithfulness to us.

[26:33] God Let me also just apply this briefly to us as a church. I want to think about it because in the next 12 months it's very possible that there will be cranes and earth movers and pile drivers and all sorts of things right in our backyard as the construction happens.

[26:58] It might feel like a desert for us. It might feel like a hard season for us as a church. Are we prepared to look for and to trust in God's faithfulness to carry us through?

[27:14] Do we see that in fact it might be God leading us into a promised land where God will bring a whole community of people right into our backyard to love and to serve? I don't know what it's going to look like.

[27:28] Who knows? The city might just not give approvals and nothing might be nothing for the next year. But are we prepared? Are we prepared to remember that the Lord is sovereign and good in all of it?

[27:40] And to face that as well. So remembering the Lord in all of our circumstances good and hard is the first part of what Moses wants us to think about.

[27:54] But the second thing is that he wants us to recognize that in the process of all of these things in remembering the Lord there are ways in which it shapes our character and our lives in profound ways.

[28:10] Look with me at verses 2 and 3 again. Do you see the purpose clause at the end of verse 2? You shall remember the way the Lord your God led you these 48 years in the wilderness that so that for the purpose that he might humble you testing you to know what was in your heart whether you would keep his commandments or not.

[28:39] And then interestingly if you go back if you look again in verses 14 through 17 you see again this theme of how God led you into the wilderness to humble you.

[28:57] Part of remembering the Lord is recognizing that he is God and we are not. Part of what remembering the Lord is meant to do in our lives one of the dynamics of remembering the Lord is that it deepens our humility.

[29:15] humility. Because the converse of course is what he warns of in the second half of this chapter right? That we lift our hearts up and we think of ourselves as proudly self-sufficient.

[29:31] As arrogantly self-sourced. I'm able to take care of my own life. I am able to provide for myself. I am the source of all good things in my life. When we lose sight of the Lord we exalt ourselves into his position as the ultimate provider.

[29:51] The ultimate source of life. And so a part of what Moses is helping us see is that remembering the Lord isn't just a simple thing but it's one of the ways in which God wants us to have our hearts shaped.

[30:13] Because when we remember him we are humbled before him. When we see his provision we don't think oh I did that. We think wow this is what God has given to me.

[30:25] What a wonderful thing it is. It helps us to be humble when we have times of great abundance.

[30:35] When God gives us the greatest gifts. When you enter into the most wonderful things that you can imagine. Success at work. Your relationship with a spouse.

[30:46] Your children's growing up and having great growing up to be great kids. When you have these things that you most hope for. When you remember the Lord you say what a great blessing.

[31:04] What a great thing that God has done for me. And in every trial the sting of it is softened by the remembrance of his provision.

[31:19] When I couldn't provide God was with me and he provided for me. Why would he love me that way? But he did. And it humbles us.

[31:31] And tied to humbling is dependence. We recognize that what we have comes from him and this is of course the lesson of the manna.

[31:41] Did you notice that twice in this chapter Moses riffs on the idea of manna? He doesn't just say oh yeah and he provided food and he provided water. He says oh yeah and you were hungry and what did he do?

[31:54] He provided this thing. This supernatural thing for you. And he provided it in a way. Do you remember the rules of manna? Manna shows up every morning.

[32:05] You go out and you collect it. You can't keep it. If you try to keep it it rots. If you try to go out and collect for two days you can't do it. Except for on the Sabbath because you go out on Friday you collect for two days and then you have it for Friday.

[32:18] And oh yeah it supernaturally sticks around for Saturday and then you can eat without working to gather it. And then it's gone. He says God gave you manna.

[32:33] This incredible supernatural provision of very basic proteins and nutrients that you need to live.

[32:44] And he provided this in a supernatural way so that you would remember that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.

[32:56] God. Friends this is how profound dependence really is.

[33:10] Do you think that by your great work and by your great hand you have achieved the successes in your career that you have? Do you think that it's because of your brilliant personality and great love that you have achieved the marriage that you find yourself in?

[33:30] Do you think do you think as a kid that because you've been so wonderful that you deserve all the great things that your parents do for you every day? No.

[33:44] No. No. No. No. No. It's because the Lord loves you that he gives you good gifts. All that you have has come from him.

[33:58] And at times he takes you out in the desert and strips you of all those illusions so that you can see that you have nothing. And that what you get from him and what you get is from him.

[34:12] And there are times when he takes you into the promised land where you have everything. And he says remember me in this. It is I who have given you the power to gain these things.

[34:26] this of course is what Satan tried to tempt Jesus with in the wilderness when Jesus quotes this passage.

[34:38] He says you want the kingdom? Provide for yourself. Don't depend on God. You can do it. You're the son of God.

[34:48] You can make bread out of a stone. Go ahead. Jesus replies no. No because I have come to walk with these people to be a human and to be dependent on the Lord.

[35:06] And I will not I will not usurp that dependence for my own pleasure. Dependence is recognizing that we cannot manufacture, we cannot capture, we cannot store, we cannot reproduce God's goodness in our lives.

[35:32] It comes from him and from him alone. Thirdly in our character remembering the Lord produces praise.

[35:45] Look with me at verse 10. Again this is a remembering of them as they've entered into the promised land and the goodness of it. And he says you shall eat and be full and you shall bless the Lord for all the good land that he has given you.

[36:02] Remembering is not only just understanding that everything we have comes from God and seeing God's faithful hand of provision but it's also responding to it where we actively acknowledge what I have comes from God, has come from God.

[36:18] It means we praise God for him, for these things. It means that we verbally bless him and acknowledge that he has been good. We announce to our own hearts, to those around us and to the world, that this is the God who has provided for us.

[36:40] Let me ask you this. Take stock this morning, today. The fruit of your lips. How often do you thank God? And really do it.

[36:53] Not in the sort of offhanded, you know, almost non-theistic way that sometimes we do in our modern culture. Oh, thank God. But really, wow.

[37:05] I have a car to drive to work in. I have an office to work in. I have a, I have co-workers who I get to work with and I get to serve. I have peanut butter and jelly for lunch.

[37:16] Thank God for all these things. Thank God for the ability to wake up in the morning and walk to work or walk to class. Thank God for the ability to think, to study.

[37:31] Thank God for the ability to love the people around you for life and breath. I wonder, have you stopped thanking God?

[37:43] Have you stopped praising him? Have you stopped talking about him? Maybe you've grown weary. Maybe your life in the desert has been so long that it feels hard to find those things to remember.

[38:01] Maybe you've allowed grumbling to conquer your heart. And so the only thing on your lips is complaint rather than praise. But maybe you've lived in the promised land so long that you've lost sight of the source.

[38:20] And you're enjoying the goodness without acknowledging the giver. In our age today, in our world today, maybe you've stopped giving thanks because it feels awkward.

[38:34] Because you wonder how the people around you will respond when you actually thank God for the goodness in your life. When you acknowledge it that way.

[38:44] And look, we can be weird about that. Let's not be weird about it. Can we just acknowledge that? We can be weird about it. Like, oh, I have to insert that into every conversation. Oh, thank God for that.

[38:56] But if we have honest hearts of thanksgiving, it will come out. It will be the fruit of our lips as we remember God and see that he is at work in our lives.

[39:07] And maybe, as Moses warns us, you have fallen into the trap of thinking that the good things you do have is because you've earned it and because you deserve it.

[39:24] But friends, Moses reminds us that as we remember God, one of the things that it produces in our lives is blessing to him. And blessing here means a verbal proclamation.

[39:35] That's why I'm talking about thanking God. Because blessing God is verbally saying to God, God, I bless you because these things have come from you. And finally, maybe some of you have been waiting for me to get here the whole time, is obedience.

[39:56] Because if you look through this passage in verse 1, in verse 2, verse 6, in verse 11, and in verse 20, Moses is saying, what I'm calling you today to do is to fear God and obey his commands.

[40:12] To do the things that I, that God has instructed you to do as his people. Remember, in the book of Deuteronomy, God has been, God is, Moses is retelling the story of Sinai as a part of it.

[40:25] He's saying, this is how God has given you the law to instruct you as to what it means to live as God's people in the world. And so part of what he's saying in chapter 8, in fact, in some ways, the greatest rubric is, if you're going to be my covenant people, I've given you instructions that you need to obey in order to live out this covenant with me.

[40:46] But what I want you to see is the brilliance of what Moses does here and what God does in helping us see our hearts. Because it's so easy for us, isn't it, for obedience to become drudgery, for obedience to become assent with our lips, or simply going through the motions of doing what we have been told is right.

[41:11] And yet, of course, this has never been obedience in a biblical sense. Instead, what God does is he tells us that when we remember God, when we see how good he is, when we recognize that it is him who has done all the good things for us and not ourselves, when we see in the desert how he is provided, when we see in the promised land his abundant provision, when he sees the good that has overflowed into our lives, and when we praise him for all of those things, our hearts then have the soil from which obedience will flow quickly.

[41:53] Why would I not obey a God who has been so good to me, who has been so faithful to me? And conversely, when I lift up my heart in arrogant pride and I say, I have done these things, I have provided for myself, I have cared for myself, and in the wilderness, God had forsaken me and only led me into trial and hardship.

[42:20] when I have allowed my heart to go there, then, when God says, this is how you ought to live, my first response in my pride will be, well says who?

[42:36] Or, I will only do that if it makes sense to me. I will only do that if I agree with it. I will only do that if it meets my criteria for goodness. And so, in the context of this exhortation to keep the commandments in order to be covenantally faithful, part of what God is saying is, remember the Lord because as you remember the Lord, your heart will be fertile soil for obedience.

[43:09] It will flow out of a heart that remembers the Lord. when we forget God's goodness, when we no longer not trust Him, and our loyalty is attached to ourselves or something else that we trust in more than Him, that is when we fail to obey.

[43:39] So, friends, remember the Lord and His goodness to you. And you know, one of the amazing things is this is to the Old Testament believers, right?

[43:53] Who had remembered the deliverance from Egypt. Friends, we now stand as the church of God looking back on an even greater deliverance. We can look back and see how God has been good to us by delivering us from the greatest oppression ever of our sin and the curse of sin which is death in our lives.

[44:15] God has sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, to be our rescuer and our liberator and our provider. And so, we look at it and we think, how much more do we have to remember?

[44:31] How much more do we have to be thankful for? How much more can we say, I have nothing to commend myself to God for, but God has given me all that I need in Christ.

[44:44] I have no righteousness but Christ has given me all the righteousness I need to be God's son and daughter. And that would be a good thing for us to remember.

[45:02] But friends, the gospel is even greater news than that. Because that would be a commitment. If that were true, then the whole point of my sermon would be go home and remember more and do better at it.

[45:15] Please be better at remembering God. But friends, we have a Lord who loves us so much and knows our frailty and knows our weakness.

[45:28] And friends, the really good news of the gospel is that God has remembered us first. That God is the one who initiated this work.

[45:39] And in fact, God sent one in our place who came and remembered God perfectly. That's what Jesus is. Jesus walked through the wilderness of life in a fallen world having left the promised land of life in heaven.

[45:55] He came and walked through those things and lived dependently and humbly and with praise on his lips to God. In every moment, he was the one who fulfilled the command to remember the Lord perfectly.

[46:13] And in that, God has remembered us and provided for us a substitute to do what we could not do. And so, he extends to us then grace.

[46:28] Goodness undeserved, a Savior who loves us this much. And so, friends, yes, we are to try to remember the Lord better.

[46:48] That would be a good thing. That's a good effort. But recognize that the fruit from that will be going to a God who has already remembered you, who has already provided for you in every way, who has already given you a Savior, who has been the perfect rememberer for you, the one who allows you to be in covenant with him, with God, not because you obey the laws and the commands well, but because you recognize that you can't do that and you simply put your trust and faith in this one who has, in Jesus Christ.

[47:31] So as we face the next year, whether it will be one of desert or whether it will be one of plenty, let us think of him. Let us think of this Jesus.

[47:41] Let us meditate upon him. Let us fix our hearts on him. Let us remind one another about him because in doing so, all of the richness of a life of remembering God and his goodness to us will be ours.

[47:58] Let us pray. Lord, we thank you for your faithfulness to us. Thank you for Jesus who is all that we need.

[48:15] Lord, we pray, Lord, that we might by your grace remember him more and more. And Lord, as we remember him that our hearts would be filled with humility, that we would recognize our dependence and we would praise you that we would be moved to obedience.

[48:36] Lord, we know that this is a work that you alone can do in our hearts and we ask you to do it for your glory and for our good. We pray this in Jesus' name.

[48:49] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[49:03] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[49:13] Amen. Amen. Amen.