Remember Your God

To grab our bibles. To grab our bibles in turn with me to Deuteronomy

chapter eight. Deuteronomy chapter eight. And if you don't have a Bible with

you, just raise your hand. We're passing those out. And if you

didn't get a bulletin on the way into the worship center, that's also going

to be super helpful. So just raise your hand and keep it up if

you need a bulletin or a bible. While you're turning to Deuteronomy eight,

I want to tell you about a guy. I want to tell you about

a guy that I know and many of you know too, because he has

his own personal fan club in our congregation. If you're new here, just

consider that appropriate. I'm Richard Cobb. Loves you, guys, and I've

come to known Richard as a as a man who is earnest in his serving

of the flock of God. And he serves you in many ways, many

ways that you I'm not I'm sure you don't know, in the ways in

which he works to see you equipped and brought in and discipling one another.

And one of the other ways that he loves you is he meets together with

me and several other people every Tuesday, as we look at God's Word together

and we consider how we're going to best handle the word to feed the flock

on Sunday morning. And Richard has done that with us for years now on

Tuesdays, and his insight and convictions about God's Word have only grown and grown,

and Gon and I've been able to witness that, and you will obviously

enjoy that this morning as Richard brings the words, So would you welcome him

upank you well, good morning, And I would love if you were to

keep that level of energy while I'm preaching as well, So that would be

wonderful, that would be spectacular. Thank you so much for being here.

It is. I love this church and I am grateful every time I walk

through the doors and see all of you. Thank you for this opportunity to

bring the Word to you. This morning. We are going to be in

Deuteronomy eight, but my hope is that we wouldn't just be in it for

these few minutes, but that it would be with us as we leave this

place, as we go from here, and frankly, all week long.

I moved here February twenty twenty, and I knew exactly, Oh guys,

I guess I did asked for that, and I knew three things about San

Antonio. Riverwalk was nice, that's what I've been told. It's hot,

that is true. And number three that the Alamo was an old building that

we should remember. I thought that the cry of remember the Alamo was remembering

a great victory, a great success. What I did not learn until I

got here and actually learned was that it was a rallying cry for people to

remember not a great success, but a really tragic defeat. We need battle

cries, we need rallying cries, we need holidays to remember important things.

Because the truth is, we are a forgetful people. Some of it's intentional,

right, there's some things that we forget on purpose. But there's some

of it that is unintentional too. We are just finite creatures. But there

are some things that we should never forget, and we need to be intentional

to never forget. There are relationships and people and events that we need to

remember as long as we live and we're going to see. Moses is charged

to do just that in Deuteronomy eight, where the what he's calling us to

remember is actually the who he's calling us to remembers. He's calling us to

remember God. He's calling us to not just remember that God exists, but

pleading with them to remember what He has done for them on their behalf.

The promise is that he has made for him, how he has led them

generously. He wants them to remember his character and the relationship that they have

together. If I were to put it into one sentence, I would say

this way, in lack or luxury, follow with the humble heart, and

remember it's God who provides. I'm going to say that one more time,

very slowly. Again, in lack or in luxury, follow with a humble

heart, and remember it's God who provides. There's some wonderful and terrifying parts

in this chapter, but don't take my word for it. Well, let's

open up to Deuteronomy eight. I will read, Please follow along with me

verse one. The whole command 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 you swore that the Lord swore to give to your father's 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 are not.

And he humbled you and let you hunger, and fed you with manna that

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. Your clothing did not

wear out on you, and your foot did not swell these forty years.

Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, the Lord

your God disciplines you. 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, fountains and springs flowing out in the hills, in the valleys

and 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 lack it, sorry 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. 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. 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 was 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. Beware, less you say in your heart, my

power and the might of my hand have gotten 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 father's

as it is this day. 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 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. This is God's word. And would you pray with

me? God? Would you give us the eyes to see? Would you

give us the ears to hear? Would you give us a heart to know

you and love you and trust you and obey you do what only you can

do for us here right now? Amen, we have two main headers this

morning, and I wanted to make it really easy on both of us.

So they're each five words, and they're each even the same five words.

The first point will be remembering the tests of God, remembering the test of

God. That'll be the first ten verses. Second point the test of remembering

God. That'll be verses eleven to twenty. Let's dive into the first point,

remembering the test of God. Moses starts right off by telling them about

why he's saying what he's what he's about to say verse one, the whole

commandment that I command you today. And we shouldn't just think think about this

chapter, this passage, but we should think of all of Deuteronomy. You

shall be careful to do. Why should we be careful to do it?

That you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land that the

Lord swore to give to your fathers after forty years of wandering in the wilderness.

The Lord is about to fulfill the promise that he made generations ago to

their forefathers. And even the name he uses to identify himself is important here.

It's the name Yahweh or the name Jehovah, which is the name God

used to introduce himself back to back in Exodus three when Moses met him at

the burning bush. Of this name, one scholar said, its meaning is

that he makes his promises to come about, and he reveals himself as faithful

and true and fulfilling them. So when it says the Lord or the Lord

your God, Moses is wanting you to think about that covenant keeping name,

that covenant keeping character of God. And this time, because he is committed

to keeping his promise, the people of Israel will actually make it into the

land. And this is where we get the first word. Remember, Moses

is asking that they would actively remember God here, and specifically that they would

remember how he led them in the wilderness for forty years. He kept them

humble and hungry by testing them. Verse two says, and you shall remember

the whole way that the Lord your God 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. We'll see it

again in verse fifteen. But notice how it doesn't say he banished them into

the wilderness. Notice how it doesn't say that he sent them out into the

wildernes. No, he led them there. He was with them while they

were there. Moses wants them to see that even in the wilderness, God

was personally caring for them. And then it goes on to say, testing

you to know what was in your hearts. Our hearts in the Bible are

not just the blood pumping organ that's keeping us all alive right now. Our

hearts are like compasses. And I'm not saying listen to your heart like they

do in eighties pop songs or in Disney cartoons. What I'm saying is that

we follow the directions of our affection, and our affections are set in our

heart. So we see, like in so many places of the Bible,

God isn't just looking to the external obedience of his people, but is looking

to their hearts to see whether they would keep his commands or not. Three

And he humbled you and let you hunger, and fed you with manna,

which you did not know, nor did your fathers know. Why Why did

he keep them humble and hungry? 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. We see here that the loving God of

the universe showed them that he intimately cared for them, and how they would

receive every single meal that they had, it would come from him. And

though God provides food for every creature living on this planet, no one's ever

been fed directly like this by God before. We read in Exodus sixteen forty

five that this bread, this manna, rained down from heaven, no additives,

no preservatives. He provided for them everything that they would need for forty

years. This was a test for them every single day for forty years.

I'm not good at math, but my calculator is that is fourteen thousand,

six hundred days He fed over two million people, caring for them. They

received bread, not from some other means, but by his hand. But

the bread was never the point. They had something better than this miraculous,

lambast bread. God wanted to show them that even though they had the miracle

of Manna, what sustained them was his word. As one commentator said,

the basic source of life was God and the words of God to his people,

quoting verse three, Every utterance of the mouth of the Lord was more

basic to Israelite existence than was food. What God provided in this situation was

himself. I'm not talking about bread, I'm talking about himself. To focus

on the gift removed from focusing on the giver is to miss the most important

part, the intimate care God provides for his people. The greatest example of

taking this verse to heart, we get to see Jesus actually did this.

In Matthew four one to four. We see that Jesus was in a time

of testing in the wilderness for forty days, and Satan knew that he can

get him who was potentially weak, potentially not ready. It would have been

easy for him to seek satisfaction in bread. And yet Jesus was armed with

this verse he says in verse four. But he answered, it is written,

man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes

from the mouth of God. Jesus was tested like Israel, but he passed

the test. He was humbled and hungry in the wilderness, and we got

to see what was in his heart. He was tempted to recreate this man

a miracle, but he responded with what he had been feasting on in his

heart, which was God's word. Jesus knew that he did not live by

bread alone, but by every word that came from the mouth of the Lord.

And we see that he did not forget that hid the Lord, his

God. That he remembered we praised the Lord for then then we see more

care back in our passage. Their clothing did not wear out for forty years.

Wow. Their feet did not swell after walking around the desert for forty

years. Wow. God provided daily provision of food, loathing, and health

for his people. But each of these things was not about the Israelites,

and it wasn't even about the provision. It was about God showing that he

loved and he cared for them. And then we get these sweet words in

verse five. Know then in your heart see where God aims his arrows.

Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the

Lord your God disciplines you. Before I was a father, I don't know

if I would have seen those words as sweet. But now, as a

father of two little girls who are growing up more and more every day,

I don't want obedience that doesn't come from the heart. I don't want mere

obedience. When I have to discipline my girls, I want them to know

that I'm fighting for their heart. I'm fighting for their affections. And it's

not their affections for me, as if I'm the point, it's the affections

of a good and loving father that they would grow deeper and greater in their

love of him. The Israelites might not have been in a land flowing with

milk and honey yet, but they were kept right by the side of their

loving Father, who knew that the best thing for them was to be right

by him in close relationship with him. He was after their hearts the whole

time, and like newborn babies that if they want to live, need to

stick close to their mothers who feed them with the nourishment that they provide,

So we, like them, need to stay so close to God. Yes

it was suffering, but there was good in the suffering in the wilderness.

So we, like Israel, need to see that in lack, we are

to follow with a humble heart and remember that it's God who provides. Four

hundred years ago, Pastor Richard Sibbs wrote a book called The Bruise Read,

in which he showed how Jesus invites the weak and weary to his side,

how he binds up the humble and hurting, and is gentle with them.

Of Jesus, he wrote these words, as a mother is tenderest to her

most diseased and weakest child, so does Christ, most mercifully inclined to the

weakest. Likewise, he puts an instinct into the weakest things to rely upon

something stronger than themselves for support. The vine stays itself upon the elm,

and the weakest creatures often have the strongest shelters. There is a pride that

so many of us have been raised with a pride in which we say we

just don't need others, that we can be self sufficient. This simply isn't

true. The Israelites should have celebrated their intimate relationship with God as the most

beautiful thing. And in Deuteronomy seven to seven we see that it was not

the strength that qualified them to have a relationship with God, but that they

were the weakest, that they were the fewest in number. And just like

the Israelites couldn't be self sufficient, neither can we. We need to draw

near to our God, especially in the wilderness. It's easy for us to

want to escape suffering. It's easy for us to want to get out of

it as quickly as we can. And I'm not saying that we should go

sign up for more suffering, but when we are in it, we should

look for God while we're there. Psal I'm thirty four eighteen says the Lord

is near to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit. While in

prison for being a pastor, John Bunyan, the writer of The Pilgrim's Progress,

also wrote these words. He said, I never had in all my

life so rate and inlet into the Word of God as now in prison.

Those scriptures that I saw nothing in before were made in this place and state

to shine upon me. Jesus Christ also was never more real and apparent than

now here I have seen him and felt him indeed. End quote. Pastor

Tim Keller, in his book on Suffering wrote of the purpose of one of

the purposes of suffering. He said, and some suffering has no purpose other

than to lead a person to love God more ardently for himself alone, and

so discover the ultimate peace and freedom. I'm not encouraging you to just sign

up for suffering, but if you are suffering now, or if you will

ever suffer again, and you will suffer again, I want to encourage you

to keep your eyes open to how God is intimately caring for you and with

you in your pain. You will find whatever you look for. If you

look for hopelessness and the desert, I promise you will find that. But

if you look for His tender care for you, you will find that as

well. In great abundance, God will never leave his children alone in their

suffering. And actually we get to read about God joining us in our suffering.

The fact that Jesus took on human flesh, and though he did not

have to suffered in our place, and suffered so that we would never have

to suffer like he did. Either before you leave today or at some point

this week, I want you to take time to recall how you can remember

a time where God was gracious and generous by giving him, by giving you

himself in the midst of your suffering. We don't have a small group this

week, so you're not going to have a natural time for it, but

I want you to be intentional to reach out to someone else and recall for

them how God has done that for you. Or if you're in a hard

or dry season, now spend time looking at how God is merciful to you,

even right now in the midst of the trial. Pastor Eric Raymond wrote,

if mercy is what we need and difficulty makes us cry for it,

then that difficulty, though unpleasant, becomes a surprising minister. It's the vehicle

that brings us closer to God. Having this perspective will flavor our difficulties with

heavenly seasoning. All right. Getting back to our passage, Israel, though,

is leaving the wilderness, about to go into the land of plenty,

and in verse six we see Moses say so, and light of all these

just said, you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, by

walking in his ways and by fearing him. Throughout Deuteronomy, and especially in

this passage, there is a tight connection between the idea of remembering God and

keeping his commandments. Specifically, here, by walking in his ways and fearing

him, Moses is spelling out for him how to follow with a humble heart,

but by remembering the tests of God and walking in obedience from the heart.

Then, in what is a bridge between the first and second sections of

this chapter, Moses describes this good land that they're about to enter verse seven,

a land of brooks, of water, of fountains, of springs,

valleys and hills, in contrast to the wilderness Verses eight to night. A

land of wheat and barley and great abundance, as opposed to what is a

wilderness where they were on the manna diet for forty years Verse nine B.

A land which whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can

dig comper, in contrast with a wilderness which is not usually known for its

rich mineral resources. And Moses can finally say what he wanted to say forty

years ago verse ten, and you shall eat and be full, and you

shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

Yes, this is a good land full of provision from God, promised by

God generations ago, a good land that meant to be a blessing to the

Israelites, and in response, Moses tells them to praise Him for that land.

In this first section, we saw how Moses drew their memories back to

the previous forty years with remembering the tests of God. And next we're going

to see what they will now face and what we often face, which is

the test of remembering God. In his book A Hunger for God, pastor

John Piper writes this, the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of

evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an

appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable and almost incurable. Thousands

of years before that warning, Moses recognized this and warned his people as they

were about to start living what I call the multiplied life. Right after the

description of the good land, and you shall eat and be full, and

that the Lord your God has given you. His next words are, take

care lest you forget the Lord your God. This is a warning to remember

him, remember the relationship, remember what he has done. And just as

there's a tight connection between obedience and remembering, so in this section we'll see

that there's a tight connection to the opposite side and verse eleven, take care

lest you forget the Lord your God. How by not keeping his commandments and

his rules and his statutes, which I command you today. At the heart

of our love for God is remembering God. And at the heart of our

remembering God is keeping his commandments. And in the same way, we will

show that we have forgotten God by not obeying the Lord our God. At

some point we will either see the fruit of obedience or disobedience in our lives,

and that will show us what kind of heart we have. And it

wasn't just this way. In the Old Testament John fourteen fifteen, Jesus is

talking to his disciples and he says, if you love me, you will

keep my commandments. Love means obedience, and there's no way around that.

But let's get into this multiplied life that they live. There is a pride

that the Israelites are being warned against this. Pride is forgetting God. Yes,

he will bless them like you promised to do. But like the ghost

of Christmas Future in a Christmas Carol, Moses is pointing, showing them,

warning them of the type of future they will have if they forget God.

Verse twelve. Less when you have eaten and are full, and have built

good home houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply,

and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all you have is multiplied,

then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God.

If we didn't have this warning there at the beginning and at the end,

we'd be tempted to read this and think, this is a great future,

This is a great opportunity. The multiplied life sounds great. It sounds

like the American dream, a big home with lots of space, lots of

acres, lots of wealth piled up. If I were to put these Bible

verses on a billboard and a phone and my phone number and a picture of

construction traffic, I would get so many phone calls because people would want to

live that. People would see this blessing and they would want that blessing.

And the truth is that if we aren't careful, if we aren't intentional,

we would gladly sign up for that life too, one where we have all

the good things and yet forget God. Luxury is the test of our hearts

that we must face and must truly for the love of God. Be careful

to remember him. Back to verse fourteen. Listen again to what Israel is

being warned not to forget all the provision of God, all the protection of

God, all the pursuit of God. Now turn back back in your page.

Turn back in your Bible's a page Deuteronomy six six to nine. Right.

We think of these often as parenting verses. But therefore every heart in

Israel, if they do what Moses says here, remembering God won't be a

problem. It says in chapter six, verse six to nine. And these

words that I command you today shall be on your heart, and you shall

teach them diligently to your children. And you shall walk, and you shall

talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by

the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise you shall

bind. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they

shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts

of your house and on your gates. Now, if they were intentional to

live out what Moses commanded here, there would be no way that they would

forget the Lord there God. It'd be too important, and there'd be too

many constant reminders of who he is and what he has done. And it's

not just for them, but this would also have ramifications for future generations,

so that future generations would also know the Lord There God and remember what he

had done for them, for their fathers. That's why they were supposed to

do it. It was for the purpose of remembering. Back to chapter eight,

he ends verse sixteen with the test and the land that they had just

endured, that He might humble you and test you to do good to you.

In the end, God is not a mean dictator. No, he

is looking for what would do them good, To be humbled, to be

right, to be in right relationship with God. These rules and commandments that

he gave them were not meant to squelch their joy, but to set them

apart, as in the had a relationship with him, would make them distinct

from the nations who didn't have these commands who didn't have that relationship, and

for their own blessing. These commandments are for their benefit, given by a

good and loving father Verses seventeen and eighteen. Beware lest you say in your

heart, my power and the might of my hand have gotten 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 father's as it is this day. Have you do have any friends

who seem to have the mightas touch? Right, everything they do just seemingly

turns to gold, whether that was good grades in school, or quick job

promotions, or popularity, or they just seem to be winning it life.

In a conversation with a friend many years ago that I perceived to have this

this Midas touch, he was recounting how God had blessed him and this new

church plant that he had started, and as he shared these details, I

was impressed not with the words that he talked about and the blessings that God

had given him, but he was so humble about it that he wasn't elevating

his heart or what he did, what he could do. He wasn't bragging

about what he had done. He was bragging about what God had done.

He was seeing these things as a gift from God, not something that God

owed him. He could have easily, and I might say naturally, just

talked about these things and either not talked about God at all or just kind

of made a passing reference, similar to a football player who makes a big

catch and then just points to the heavens with no real gratitude, no real

thanks. But this was an example of sincere humility. It was a great

example of walking in obedience, and when remembering the blessings of God, he

remembered God, when things are going well for us, are we tempted to

just take the glory and think that we deserve it, that these things have

come because we accomplished it? When we live the multiplied life, are we

tempted to forget God and say, in our hearts, my power, the

might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. See, Israel's greatest testing

was not in the wilderness for forty years in lack. Their greatest testing would

come in the promised Land, where everything was good. Would they still thank

God for their daily bread when it wasn't being provided from His hand when in

verse nine we read a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity,

in which you will lack nothing. When they lack nothing and they would eat

bread without scarcity as they had done for the previous forty years, would they

remember that all of the provision came from God's hand, and even more important

than just the provision. Would they remember that it's God's word that sustains them?

Do we remember that today? Not? Do we remember that He exists?

But is God an active and real presence in our lives and in our

hearts? We also live in a land in which we have hb without scarcity,

and in which we lack nothing compared to most of human history and even

most of the world. Today, we live like kings. Do we have

the accompanying pride that many kings also have had in history? Or do we

remember that everything we have comes from God, that every blessing we have is

from His hand, and that He has given us not just that but the

very air we breathe. He's given us a future, He's given us eternity

with him. The truth is that we're still a very forgetful people. And

this warning that Moses warns them about but knew they would fail Verses nineteen and

twenty. 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 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.

What we see here is that warning of a heart that gets pulled away

towards good things and away from God, and have the heart for it.

We also, on our own, don't have the heart for it. Though

it would have been physically possible for them to just keep the commands, to

keep the laws, to not break the law, they would have never been

able to attain righteousness right standing before God by their mere obedience. They needed

a new heart. And that is the good news that God knew this and

he did something about it. He sent Jesus, who passed all the tests

and fulfilled all the law that we never could. And by his perfect keeping

of the law and substitutionary death in our place and victory over the grave,

we can now come to God, not by keeping the law, but by

grace through faith. And if you are here today and you aren't trusting in

Jesus's sinless perfection on your behalf. My question is, how will you pay

for your sins? How will you atone for your sins? If you are

trusting in just mere obedience to a law to save you, how is that

going to work? We can't keep the law perfectly from a perfect heart.

Or maybe you don't even think about the law. Maybe you think you are

a law unto yourself. What will you say when you stand face to face

with the judge of the universe on the last day? Oh friend, please

see that there is no way for you to do enough to be acceptable to

God. There's no amount of law keeping or good works that can justify you

before God. There is one way, and God send Jesus so that we

can so that he can die in the place of sinners for those who would

trust him. And I pray that He would give you the heart to see

the beauty of that plan. Here this morning,