Start Over: Remember

Okay. How you guys doing? I haven't done that in a while. No response whatsoever.

How quickly people forget. I don't know what's going on here. How you guys doing?

Good, good, good, good. I want to welcome you. If this is your first time here to Watermark,

I just want to welcome you. My name is Tobin. I'm one of the pastors here. And we are the

Fertile Church, I think. This last two weeks, I think I've visited five or six newborn babies.

So people are coming here to produce or reproduce or I don't know what it is. I just tell them

there's stuff we put into food afterwards, those little cakes and candy and things like that that

are producing. I don't know. But it's just, it's amazing to see God working in our lives and to see

Him multiplying this church. So we have been starting this sermon series. It's called Start

Over or Do Over or Begin Again or however you want to say it. These last two weeks, and we're going to

finish it off this third week. And our hope is that you would be encouraged. Our hope is that you'd be

challenged. You know, it's okay to be challenged in church, right? I mean, sometimes we just want to

come and just relax and not. But God's Word should be challenging to us. And so we should be

challenged by that. So we hope that you've been encouraged and challenged and blessed by the

sermons that you've heard as we look into this new year. Two weeks ago, we did a sermon on gratitude.

And we said as we go into this new year, that gratitude is going to be one of those things that

we need to be aware of, that we're going to have this battle, this tension between being grumbling

and being gracious and thankful for what God has done. We looked at the passage in Matthew 20 about

the landowner who has all this land and he needs people to cultivate it. And so he goes out and he

hires the people. And at the end of the day, we see that he is very gracious. He does these things at

great personal cost to himself. He's very generous. He's not very efficient by Hong Kong standards

whatsoever. And in the passage, we were challenged just by God's grace and His love for us.

And the question was, how do we respond to what God is doing in our life? Are we thankful for what

He's done or are we grumbling? As we head into this new year, we talked about this focus of what

is our focus towards God. Last week, we looked at, as Jeremy talked about, we looked at ASAP. He was

one of the three worship leaders for King David. He led worship at the covenant where the tent of the

meeting where the Ark of the Covenant was inside of it. And in Psalm 73, he has this struggle,

struggle. And the struggle is things that he learned and knew about God and the things that

he saw were very different. And it caused him to have doubts in his life. And we learned that

each one of us has a different theology. We learned that some of us are cats and some of us are dogs.

And I'm very thankful that no one dropped any kittens off at my door this week. So thank you so

much. If you want to drop a chocolate lab at the door, you can do that. My wife and I will have a fight

over that. But, you know, so we talked about it. And so a dog theology is this. You love me, you feed me,

you take care of me, you pet me. You must be God. Whereas cats think, you love me, you feed me,

you take care of me, you pet me. I must be God. So cats use terminology and pronouns that are me and

mine and me. And dogs use terminology that is you and God and us. We learned that as he,

ASAP brought these doubts before God, that it was okay to have doubts. I think we live in a church

that no one wants to talk about doubts. No one wants to talk about fears. No one wants to be

angry with God. And we see in the Psalms that it's okay to bring these things. And we saw that when

ASAP came into the sanctuary of the Lord, that he laid out these things before God. And God met him and

changed his heart. We learned that focus, the main focus of what we're supposed to be doing is

worshiping God. We learned it in Hebrew that the idea of worship means to bow the knee before the

Lord. It means to give to God what he deserves because of who he is and what he's done.

Worship means to bow before the Lord and give to him what he deserves because of who he is and what

he's done. And we talked about that with our time and with our tithe and with our gifts and with our

money. And we were challenged because we said that everybody worships something. So everybody in here

is bowing their knee before something. Everybody in here is giving to something what they think it

deserves for what it's done to them and what they've gotten out of it. And the question is, what are we

doing and who are we worshiping? And we were challenged as Christians to say this new year, as we go into the

new year, if we're worshiping before the Lord and no one's, you know, we don't know, but people are

watching us. And it happens because people around you are watching you. And your people in your work

are watching you. I mean, your kids are watching you. It's amazing how often our kids watch everything

that we do and they learn from us. And so we were challenged if someone is watching us and they're

watching us worship. They're watching us worship with our time and they're watching us worship with our

words. They're watching us worship with our money and our gifts and our talents. If they're watching

us do that, what would they think about our God? Would they think, oh, his God is awesome. He's huge.

He's powerful. He's the most important thing. Or would they think, oh, his God is small. His God is

insignificant. His God doesn't really mean much to him. And we were challenged by this idea that we often

lose our focus. And God is always there to bring us back and to love us and to take care of us. And so

I wanted to end this sermon series on one of my favorite passages. It's Deuteronomy 8. It's this

passage of change. It's a passage of transition. It's this passage of looking back. And sometimes I

don't think we look back as much as we should because we're always in Hong Kong looking forward.

We're planning the new year. We're looking at what things are going to be doing and what we need to do and

what we want things to look like. But here you see Moses is talking to the people of God. And it's

probably his last sermon that he's going to give to them. He's teaching them on the plains of Moab.

And they're about to look into this land. And he's calling them. He's calling us to remember.

He's calling us to remember what God has done. Now remember God's people in Genesis, the end of

Genesis, they come down to Egypt. There's this huge famine across the land. And we're told that they just

multiply. And they multiply and they multiply. And the Egyptians get afraid of them. And so they put

them into bondage. And they, for 400 years, are enslaved. And they're in bondage. And then God sends

this man named Moses to come and he frees them. And through this series of like 10 miracles, they leave

the bondage of Egypt. And they go out into the wilderness. And they go to Mount Sinai. And on Mount

Sinai, they meet God. And God gives them the law. And they learn what God is like. And they learn more

importantly, what he's not like. And what they should be like. And then they head off towards

the promised land. And as they head off towards the promised land, what you see throughout scripture

is that they just continually make mistakes. They just continually grumble. They just continually

want something different. They just continually think that maybe it's better to go back into

bondage than it is to follow God. And they get right to the border of the promised land.

They get right to this land. I have some pictures of it. I think so. We have these

two pictures here. So this is the wilderness. This is the desert. This is where they wandered.

If you go next year when we go to Israel, you can join us. Dr. Hannah is coming next week

for six weeks. And we're going to take a tour there next year. And it's barren. There's nothing

there. Nothing can live there. What's another picture? So here's two of the pilgrims right

there. So you can join us there next year and take a picture down in that. But this is the

wilderness. But forget that one. Go to the last one. Next one. Good. And so this is where

they go. And so they're in this wilderness. And they hit this river called the Jordan

River. And when they look across the Jordan River, they see this amazing oasis, which is

Jericho, the oldest city in the world. And so they said, okay, we're going to go in. We're

going to take this promised land. And so they send out 12 spies. And these 12 spies go out

for 40 days. And they look around. And they bring back amazing fruit and the plenty of the

land. But when they come back and they say, hey, should we go in and take over the land?

Because God says we're going to go in there. It's ours. Let's do it. Ten of them say no.

They say it's impossible. They say there's giants in the land. There's these huge, these

sons of Anak. They're huge. And there's no way we're going to be able to do that. And

what we see is that the people of God listen to the majority. I mean, they complain. And

they tell God and Moses no way. They actually grumble against God. Can you imagine they grumble

against God who brought them out of captivity and he brings them into this amazing land.

And they grumble. And they actually said they want to go back to Egypt. They want to go back

into bondage. They want to go back to where things were not that good. And so we're told

in the passages that God disciplines them. And he says, okay, you don't want to go? Then

you don't have to go. So we're going to discipline you. And he takes them on this journey. And for

40 years in this desert, they just wander around. I mean, they're just making these circles back

and forth, back and forth. And the amazing thing is they could look over to their left and

they could see the promised land. They could see where they should have been if they had trusted

God and were obedient. Now, how hard would that be? And so they're wandering around for 40 years

because God has something amazing to teach them. He has this deep spiritual problem in their heart

that he wants to talk to them about. And then we get to this passage today and it's basically 40 years

later, but they're back at the same place where they had the choice to obey God. They're looking

over the river Jordan. And it's amazing because it's in this valley and you see Jericho and it's just

all these palm trees. So in the middle of this desert, all of a sudden all these palm trees and it's this

place called Jericho. And Moses calls them to remember. Now they're about to go do something amazing,

something that's never been met in before. And Moses doesn't lay out this game plan. Okay,

first do this, first do that, first do this, first do this. But he says, I want you to remember.

Now in Hebrew, the word is very special. It actually means re-member. And you're thinking,

well, of course. But it means re-member. It means to bring all the parts together.

It means to assemble the picture. It means to bring all the stories together and make them into one

big story. It means to bring the truth together and complete it. It means to just make it

whole. Now the opposite of remember is not forget. The opposite of remember is dismember,

which is what we do sometimes. We make less of God. We make less of his faithfulness. We make

less of who he is. Christmas has been an amazing time in our house. We have people come in and go,

people come in and go. I think I'm losing my voice. My kids have gotten presents. And one of my kids,

so this is, so when you came in, you signed this non-disclosure act, right? Everybody signed this

non-disclosure act? Because I'm going to share stuff with you today that is non-disclosure. So

you can share, but then we're going to have to kill you. So one of our kids is just really,

Kip is really into puzzles, and he loves puzzles. And it's just, and you can see his mind working.

So he's gotten all these puzzles, and he's been remembering the puzzles. He's been bringing the

pieces together. It's what it means, remember. He's been remembering the puzzles. And we have puzzles

remembered all over our house. I mean, we have like eight puzzles on the floors and everywhere

else. I mean, they're just everywhere. Just two nights ago, I told him, hey, you have to dismember

a couple of your puzzles, because I can't walk anywhere without stepping on puzzles. And he's

just gotten so good with this idea of doing puzzles, and he's become kind of prideful. I mean,

I can do anything. It doesn't matter to me. And so what I did, so you can't tell him this,

but what I did is I got him this really cool puzzle. It's kind of hard. It's like 2,000 pieces.

And he opened it up, and he started working on it. And then when he left, I went in, and I grabbed

two hands full of puzzle pieces, and I took them away. And I hit him. And he started working on his

puzzle, and then he started losing interest. And he goes, oh, I want something that's even harder.

And so I went out, and we bought this puzzle, which I'd never seen before, but it's just basically

all one color. It's just silver. It's just a silver puzzle.

And I took away the top, so he has no idea what the picture looks like.

And what I realized is that as he's doing this thing, that those two puzzles, those two puzzles,

the silver puzzle and the puzzle that has the handful of pieces taken away,

those puzzles have never been completed.

He gave up on them.

I mean, they were just too hard.

He couldn't see the full picture. He didn't know where he was going. He didn't know

what he was going to do with these things. I mean, I went into his room last night,

and they're still in boxes because he just gave up because he doesn't see a big picture.

And I think that's what this passage is about today.

This passage today is about that.

It's about God sending us on this journey,

and he wants us to see all these pieces of the puzzle,

all these pieces of the picture.

And they're about to move forward.

And Moses in Deuteronomy 8, he warns them of about three things,

really about ten things, but I want to look at three things today.

He warns them of three things that they're going to have a tendency to dismember in their journey.

They're going to have three pictures or pieces of the puzzle

they're going to want to skip.

They're not going to want to deal with.

They're not going to want to fix it.

And I think these things that Moses reminds them of

are things that we need to be reminded of today.

The things are that they're going to want to take away the picture of God

in his hand in their journey.

They're going to want to take away the picture and the pieces of this passage

that talk about their heart and their need for mercy and grace.

And they're going to want to take away these pictures in this journey,

these pieces of this puzzle of just the big picture.

So they're going to take away pictures of who God is and his sufficiency and taking care of them.

They're going to take away the pieces that talk about who they really are and their heart

and their need for mercy and grace.

And they're going to take away these pieces of the big journey.

Does that make sense?

So that's kind of what we're going to go about.

So I want to look at this passage really briefly.

And I want to challenge us as a church because it's been incredibly challenging to me.

The first pieces of this puzzle that Moses warns us not to forget

is this picture of God in his hand in our life.

You see it in the passages right in front of you.

Verses 2 through 4.

Remember, remember, remember.

Verses 16 and verses 18.

Moses is calling God's people to remember everything that God has done

to bring them to this place.

He's warning them not to dismember God and his faithfulness.

He reminds them that God brought them out of bondage.

He reminds them that God broke the largest and most powerful nation in the world at that time

to free his people, that he brought them out of bondage,

and he brings them into this wilderness.

And even when they disobey, God continues to provide for them.

God provides for them this thing called manna.

It actually in Hebrew means, what is it?

You can see an abbot and costello thing, you know, that it falls on the ground every morning.

And you go out and you kind of scrape it up and you put it into a ball.

And they're talking and the guy goes, what is it?

He goes, yes.

No, what is it?

Right.

That's what it means.

It means manna.

What is it?

And this is how they ate.

And it was this food.

It's kind of this wafer.

God provided water.

Water came out of rocks, out of nowhere in these places in this desert.

And he just fed them.

God gave them clothes.

Now, guys, you're going to love this.

Guys, women will hate this.

But they gave him clothes that never wore out.

I mean, for 40 years, you get to wear the same clothes.

You get to wear the same underwear, socks.

It's like a guy's dream, right?

Hey, look at these.

I've been wearing them for 30 years.

They're like as best as they've ever been, right?

I mean, that's what he did.

And there's amazing miracles in here.

I know women, it's a woman's worst nightmare.

Clothes that never wear out.

But for guys, it's like, wow, it's your best pair of socks and shoes.

And they're with you for 40 years.

And God reminds them, Moses reminds them that he's doing all these miracles.

He gives them everything they need in probably the most hostile environment in the world.

I mean, if you tried to live there today, no one lives there today.

Because if you live there today, you die.

And the passage says that God gives and he gives and he gives.

And the people continue to complain.

They continue to complain.

They want other things.

They want other things that were back in Egypt.

They want things that they feel like are going to satisfy them better.

They wanted to go back into slavery.

They wanted to go back into bondage.

They would rather just take those pieces out of their puzzle and throw them aside.

Because they didn't think it was important that God had brought them there and made these big pictures.

They wanted to do it on their own.

They wanted to do it their way.

Then we want other things that didn't do it for us.

They wanted to do it, right?

But what about us?

How about us?

Amen.

When we think about God working in our life.

And we think about God providing for us.

When we think about God taking care of us.

And we think about God promising to do all these things.

the scripture says that he promises to take care of our food and our clothing and our jobs

and our relationships. He promises to take care of everything in our life. You know,

when you read the New Testament, the New Testament, especially in Hebrew, says that this story right

here is our story today. And just like the people of God went through the wilderness,

if you're a Christian in here right now, you're in a wilderness because this world is not made for you.

This world has been corrupted. This world is hard. This world is a spiritually hostile and desolate

place, just like the wilderness and the desert was for God's people. And you and I are walking

through this desert spiritually every day. And God promises to provide for us and to take care of us.

And the question is, do we accept his care? Or do we complain? Do we grumble? Do we want to manage

our own lives? And Moses reminds them and he encourages them and he says, be careful

because on this journey, you're going to want to take these pieces of God's faithfulness out of

the way. You're going to forget these things. The minute something really hard happens in your life,

you're going to forget where God has brought you from and how he's brought you there and how he takes

care of you every moment. And you're just going to focus on the here and the now, and you're going to

lose those pieces of your puzzle. I love the passage. I stuck it up there in the beginning of your

bulletin. It's the Ecclesiastes passage. It was spoken from the wisest man in the world,

Solomon. And it says this idea that God has put eternity in our hearts. It means that you and I

were made for another world. And that we're going to feel this struggle, and we're going to feel this

tension, and we're going to feel this battle. And if we don't forget this, especially when we go into

the hostile times and into the deserts, the passage says we're not going to survive.

It says we're going to fail. That every one of us is going to be tempted today and tomorrow and this year.

We're going to be tempted to forget God's faithfulness and his goodness in our life.

The next thing that Moses warns the people of God about and that he warns us about is that we're going

to take these pieces that are called Tobin and my heart and my need for God's grace, and we're not going to

want to put those in this puzzle. Because those pieces are difficult sometimes. Those pieces are hard

sometimes. And the passage says here in verses 2 and in verses 5 and in verses 16 that when we're on this

journey, God's taken us to these places, these difficult places, because he wants to show us our hearts.

He wants to show us our need for him. He's going to take us into these incredibly difficult places because he

knows that if he doesn't do that, he knows that if he doesn't do that and he just gives us everything we want,

the passage says that our hearts become prideful. Our hearts become self-sufficient. Our hearts become forgetful.

We start to boast. We start to complain. And Moses is reminding them of these pieces to the puzzle like

he's reminding us. And what God does when that happens is the passage says in verses 2 and 3 and 5 and 16

that God brings discipline into our life. God disciplines his children. Did you know that?

I mean, I think it's one of these things that we don't like to talk about a lot in a church because

often when we think of discipline, we think of punishment. Okay, stick your hands out. Cane me.

Whap, whap, whap. I mean, or we think if we go through the test to get into school and we just think

there's this massive test and they're going to basically test me on pass or fail. I'm going to weed out.

But that's not what the Bible talks about. The Bible says that he loves us so much,

his children, that God disciplines us. And this discipline is about correcting our hearts.

It's about correcting our attitudes. It's about correcting our vision for who God is. Now, punishment is

always about past deeds. Punishment is always retribution. Punishment always involves fear.

Punishment always involves separation. It's kind of like many of us grew up in our homes

with our parents. You know, I walked out of my house. I didn't really know much about parenting.

But one thing I did know, I don't want to be as that hard on my kids.

Punishment is you fail. You're unworthy. Get out of here. I don't want to see you.

You're unworthy of me. You're unworthy of this family. You're unworthy of this name. You're unworthy

of Harvard. But the passage says that God disciplines us because he wants to change us.

The passage says that God's doing it. He's with us all the time. I read this passage over and over

again, and I'm so, so thankful that God doesn't treat me like I treat my kids.

I can remember in China after exams and I'd walk out onto the street and there'd be 10 or 15 little

kids on the street with big boards around their neck talking about how they failed their test

and how they were a failure and a disgrace to their family.

And the Bible says that God never treats his children like that. That he never punishes us.

He never says, I'm done with you. Get out of here. But he changes us. And he takes us to places that

you and I can see our hearts and that we can be changed. I mean, I think this is a very intense thing.

I think it's important. We don't like to talk about it, but the passage says that God's going to

take us to places that are difficult because he wants to do something amazing in our hearts.

God's going to take you to a desert this year probably because he loves you.

Because the passage says he takes all of his children to these places. And what he does in

these places is he opens up our hearts and he shows us things that we love more than him.

And what he usually does is he takes those things away.

And when he takes those things away,

our job,

our health,

our finances,

our reputation,

we have a choice. We have a choice. What are we going to fill that hole up with?

In the passage, it says that God is always there.

He's always providing and he wants us to fill that emptiness.

With him.

With a deeper relationship with him.

I can remember the day God opened my eyes and I came to Christ.

You know, I don't remember much about my childhood.

I remember that my childhood was filled with a lot of fear

and a lot of shame

and a lot of doubt.

And when I look back at how my parents were raised,

I'm like, wow, God was really gracious to me

because my parents actually did really good

with what they had.

And when I came to Christ and allowed,

I invited Christ into my life

and Christ came into my heart

and he changed me,

I wish I could say that all these fears disappeared.

I wish I could say that

I got a handle on being a control freak

and handling on to things

and making sure that I did things perfectly right.

That they all disappeared,

but they didn't.

And the passage says that we deceive ourselves

when we think that.

And what we see is that God takes you and me

into places

because he wants this deep, passionate,

love relationship with you.

And there's nothing else that he wants you to love.

He just wants you to love him.

And we struggle with loving other things

and caring for other things.

And he just gently opens our hearts

and he allows things to come in like sickness,

and loss,

and divorce,

and failure,

and separation,

and loneliness.

And in these desert times

when we're walking with the Lord,

he's there and he shows those things

and those things take away a part

of what we clung to more than him.

And we're just sitting there going,

okay God,

what are you gonna do now?

now all I have is you.

And God says,

great.

Because I'm enough.

I'm enough.

The passage says that as we go through life

this year and throughout our whole lives,

you and I are gonna want to take away the pieces

to deal with who we really are.

The idols in our life.

Because we don't want people to see those things.

We just want them to see,

well I'm Tobin,

I have my life together.

Huh.

But Moses says,

God loves us so much,

he's gonna take us into places

where we can take those things out.

Does that make sense?

I mean in some ways that's scary.

I mean if you're like me,

I just feared my people I loved

saying get out of here.

I don't want you around me anymore.

So a lot of times we walked in fear

and when I came to know the Lord,

I walked in fear.

That's why these passages are so powerful to me.

Because they show us that God

is not a God of fear.

And that he's a God of love

and compassion and grace.

But he does discipline us

because he wants to do something amazing in our lives.

He loves you so much

that he doesn't want you to cling to your MPF

or your job or your title

or the people in your life

that fill your life more up than he does.

Because he knows those things

are gonna eventually fail us.

And if we cling to him our whole life,

at the end of our life,

we're gonna end up empty

and disappointed

and lost.

And he knows that the only thing

that's not gonna fail us,

the only thing that's not gonna leave us empty,

the only thing that's not gonna disappoint us,

the only thing that's not gonna make us lost

forever

is Jesus.

And so he keeps putting that into our life

and we go on this journey in this desert

and he shares these things with us

and we go,

yeah, you know,

I don't know,

I don't like that,

I think I'd rather have this instead.

And God says,

that's okay.

I have a desert I wanna take you to.

You don't wanna give up control,

you don't wanna give up fear,

that's okay.

What if you have a heart attack?

Now you're four weeks in a bed

with no control.

What are you gonna do with that?

The passage says on this journey

as we produce and make this puzzle of our lives

that there are gonna be certain things

we're not gonna wanna look at

because we're afraid of them,

we don't wanna look at them,

we don't want other people to see them,

but Moses says,

remember.

Because in those most difficult times,

God is with you.

In those most difficult times,

God is with you.

The last thing the passage says to me,

and it's this whole story,

but it's usually just found in verse 16,

and he says this,

in the wilderness he fed you,

he fed you manna,

what is it?

That your fathers did not know,

that he might humble you,

you,

that he might test you,

that he might do it for your good

to the end.

And in Hebrew,

it means that when God

builds the picture of our life,

when God is putting the puzzles together,

his puzzles and his pictures

are not just about here and now,

but his puzzle and his picture of our life

is about eternity.

And I think there's so many of us in here,

we're building our lives

and we're putting these pieces together

and we're holding on to four pieces of this puzzle

and we say,

this is me,

this is my life.

And God says,

no,

your life is where I brought you from,

what I've done,

what I've done to bring you here,

your troubles,

your darkness,

these things I'm healing in your life,

what you're doing now in eternity.

And the passage says

that if we forget that,

if we forget what God has done,

if we forget his hand in our life,

if we forget his provision,

if we forget where he's brought us,

if we forget all these things

and we live our life

just like these four pieces

of 50 or 60 or 70 years,

if we live our life

like this is all of our life,

the passage says we're lost.

Because a life without God

and the pieces of his life

in your life

and doing things in your life

and a life without what you've known

and your sin

and your brokenness

and your need to come to him

and the need for grace

to fill up in our lives,

if those pieces aren't in the puzzle,

then the picture says

that we perish.

That we perish.

So this year,

we're going to go on a journey

and Moses says,

before you enter into this journey,

I want you to do three things.

I want you to look back

and to realize that God

has been with you the whole time.

God's been feeding you.

He's been taking care of you.

He's brought you through

all these things.

You think your ability

and your intellect

and all these things

got you to where you're at.

You know,

who gave you the intellect?

Who gave you the health?

Who allowed you to be born

in Hong Kong this year?

Why weren't you born in India

500 years later or earlier?

When you go on this journey,

realize that God has brought you.

God is in control.

He's taking care of you.

When you go on this journey,

realize that he's going to take you

to places that are going to show you

your need for him

in deep, hard, and painful ways.

He's going to break you.

He's going to take you to deserts.

And in the midst of these deserts,

he's always going to be there.

He's always going to be beside you.

He's never going to reject you.

And the goal is

that you would fall more

in love with him

because he's the only thing

that will take you through to the end.

And when you build this puzzle

of your life,

remember that it's to the end.

It's to eternity.

I mean, think about it.

Most of us build our lives

and our lives consist of

10,000-piece puzzle

and eternity is like two pieces.

If we included it at all.

But the way God builds our lives

is that here and now

is like four or five pieces.

And what he did before

and what he did to bring us

to his place

and what he's going to do

with us in eternity

is massive.

When you came in,

you got a red band.

Some people were very suspicious.

Amy Farrell, man,

she looked at me.

I guess it's,

I don't know what it is

about the Brits.

It's, you know,

they're asking me,

is this rubbish?

You know,

and they were very suspicious.

And, you know,

I said, well, you know,

what it means is

that you're an honorary Texan now.

So anybody who has a band on,

you're honorary Texan,

you're in heaven.

Now, what it means is this.

Today,

this week,

as you go on your journey,

you're going to have doubts.

You're going to wonder

if God is for you.

You're going to wonder

if God is in your life.

You're going to wonder

if God cares about your tests

and your professors

and your scores

and what you're going to do next

and your bonus.

You're going to worry

about all these things.

And I want you to look

at this red band

and to realize that God

is with you.

He brought you from the past.

He's been taking care of you

all this time.

He's been feeding you.

He's been clothing you.

He's there.

He's good.

He's there.

This year,

you're going to walk through life

and something is going to happen.

I had a good friend

and they were just fired this week.

And they wondered

what's going to come

of these things.

Some of us are going to get sick.

Some of us are going to lose

people we love.

Some of us are going to have things

we don't even want to talk about.

And we're going to wonder

is God with us?

Is he using these things?

Why are these things happening here?

And I want you to look at this band

and to realize that he cares.

And he's doing something

in your life

and in your heart

that is amazing.

And the question is

are you going to let him?

Or do you want to go back to Egypt

and get trapped up

by those things

that have been grabbing you

and closing you

and capturing your heart

and your affections?

As you go on this journey

this year

you're going to be thinking

about just here and now.

I got to get this week done.

I got to get these things going on.

I don't have time

to think about these other things.

This is just a special time.

These are all I'm going to worry about.

And every time in Hong Kong

what I've learned is

every time is a special time

and we don't ever think about

what's next

I want you to look at the band

because the passage says

that God thinks about what's next.

And he loves you.

And he's pursuing you.

And he's going to take care of you.

Now you don't have to wear it all week.

You don't have to wear it all month.

You realize I like to give out visual things

because they help me remember.

But I'd like to give you

just to wear it today.

And after today

you can take it off

just put it someplace

that you can see.

Because if you're like me

sometime in the next week

next month

this year

something's going to happen

in your life.

And you're going to wonder

is God real?

Does he care?

Is he there?

And the passage says

that God

does all of those things

and so much more.

And the question is

will you trust him?

Will you trust him?

Father we thank you for this day.

We thank you for your goodness

and your faithfulness

in our life.

We thank you for this passage

in Deuteronomy.

as Moses

who doesn't enter

into the promised land

because he was

disobedient.

And I know we don't like

to talk about

obedience and disobedience

because it's a scary thing.

Especially Christians

in the church today

we don't like to talk about it

we just want to talk about grace.

But your word says

that obedience

is important.

And that you've called us

to obey

because as we trust you

we experience

your goodness

and your fullness

in our life.

And if we don't trust you

we're lost.

Father I pray for some of us

in here right now

who are building

our own puzzles

of our life.

We're trying to put together

the pieces

of just here

and now

and me

and mine.

And we don't include God.

We don't include a future.

We don't include

this struggle

that we have

inside of us.

we don't realize

that God

is pursuing us.

My prayer for them

here today Lord

is that you would

open their eyes

to your son Jesus

because that's the only way

it's going to happen.

It's not going to happen

because they're good enough.

It's not going to happen

because they were

righteous enough.

It's not going to happen

because they didn't do

bad things.

It's going to happen

because you loved them.

You allowed your son

to die for them.

Father I pray

that they would

realize that.

they would ask

the people

who brought them

what this means

and they would

come into your family

this week.

Father if I pray

for the rest of us

who are on this journey

and if

they're like me

they fail

probably often.

They don't want

to look at

the past.

They don't want

to look at

your fullness

and your grace

and your mercy.

They don't.

We don't want

to look at

our brokenness.

But all along

you're there

and you're working

and you're dealing

you sent your son

through the wilderness

and he came out

successful

where we often

fail

and you pointed

us to him

and you said

now you can

trust him.

Will you trust him?

Will you allow him

to give you

the strength?

Lord I pray

for us

those of us

who are on this

journey as your

children.

That we would

allow you

once again

to capture

our hearts.

That we would

allow you

once again

to be

our God.

Father I pray

for this church

as we build

this puzzle

what it means

to be in

Watermark.

Help us

never to leave

those components

out of

God's faithfulness

in his goodness

in his provision

in his mercy

in his grace.

Help us

never to

expect people

to be so

perfect

when they

come through

the doors

and not

broken

and not

hurting

and not

doubting

and not

fearing.

Help us

to realize

that's part

of your

plan

and that's

how you

work.

You meet

almost all

of us

in the desert

and you

change

almost all

of us

significantly

in desert

times.

May we be

a church

church

that

greets

people

in the

desert

and helps

them to

see your

son

and to

walk

through it

with them

together.

So Lord

we come

to you

today

and we

just

worship

you.

As we

enter into

this new

year

we trust

you

we need

you.

We pray

all these

things in

your son

Jesus Christ

holy name.

Amen.