Stop and Consider: Redemptive Remembering

Growing up my mom had a title that she gave me, one that she would use quite often and now my wife likes to use as well. The title of absent minded professor. Because my memory works in the weirdest way. I can remember the most obscure facts you can think of, things that I just have no reason to remember but for some reason I do. Yet my wife can tell me something that she needs me to do, and not a minute later I totally forget what she said to me. Entire conversations just gone from my mind. “Why don’t you just write things down?” Well that is a great idea, except I forget to write things down…and I forget to look at the things that I wrote down. It is just a vicious circle of forgetfulness.

In this passage Moses is calling the people to remember. The three things he calls them to remember is the difficulties God led them through, the blessings God provided for them, and the promises that God had made them about the future. Each of these is to help them know that God faithfulness in the past is a reminder He will be faithful in the future. But not in Christ we see that Through our lives and in sending Jesus, God shows His continuing faithfulness will endure.

Because I know it isn’t just me, humans have a short memory. And what we do remember is usually to serve our own interests. We can remember how someone has wronged us but we very quickly forget how we wronged another person. We can remember when our favorite show is coming on or when the big game is being played, but forget about a commitment we have made to another person. It is just in our nature. That is why God laid out specific commands to the people of Israel. He told them to put His Word on their doorposts, to talk about God with their kids when they traveled, to bind it on their hands. But God also once them to stop and consider His works as a reminder for why we obey His commands. This is what He does in Deuteronomy 8. The first thing he reminds them of is that...

God has led us through difficult circumstances

The first thing that Moses reminds the people about here is that the purpose of their wandering in the wilderness is to help them recognize how weak they are. It is an experience of humbling the people. He humbled them by letting them go hungry, he humbled them by testing their hearts, by giving them difficulties. And through all of these tests He proved, through miraculous means, that He was the supplier of all their needs.

But what was the point, why did He have to test them? Well he tells them in vs 3 he tested them so that they may know that they do not live by bread alone “but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” What does this mean? It means that what is more important than physical nourishment is spiritual nourishment. Seen no clearer then in Jesus in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights without food or water, and when the devil tempts him to make bread out of stone Jesus says “man does not live by bread alone.” Quoting specifically from this passage. What Jesus is revealing is that he does not need the physical nourishment, even after 40 days, as much as he needs spiritual nourishment from his father.

But often times in difficulty what we look for is physical nourishment in the midst of spiritual problems. We have had a bad day so we “need some coffee”. When we are going through troubles we often go to comfort foods, as we call them. Or we need to take a walk, we need to watch something to take our mind off things, we get back into a bad habit we have had before. Whatever it is, these are ways we can seek to deal with spiritual issues with physical solutions. This does not mean that we can’t use those as methods of comfort, but what God says is that “man does not live on bread ALONE”. The point he is making is that God should be our primary source of comfort, and we can use His creation as a part of our comfort, but when it takes the primary it is misplaced. What God wants us to see is that in the midst of difficulties we are to humble ourselves to him rather than to make our own solutions.

What has been the hardest things about 2021?

I’m sure all of us can think of plenty of examples of hard things that we have gone through. But if you had to choose just one, what would be the hardest? Why was it so difficult? How did you deal with it? In the midst of those difficulties what solutions did you seek?

It might be hard to go back to the hardest moment in 2021. But we must take times in our lives to stop and consider our pain. Because if we ignore our pain we often make it worse. Just like when you are a kid and you scraped your knee the worst part was when you went to your mom and she poured hydrogen peroxide on it. That pain was just awful, it was worse than when you scraped your knee in the first place! But in order for the scrape to heal properly, to prevent a worse scar or infection you needed to endure that pain. God called His people to go back and consider their hunger, consider the pain of being in Egypt, consider the punishments they brought on themselves as a result of disobedience. Because it was a reminder of how the Lord brought them out of their darkness. Because often times what we will find is that God has blessed us when we didn’t deserve it.

God has blessed us when we didn’t deserve it

At our house in Raleigh we had a large yard, nearly an acre. And I had to mow it all myself, it would usually take 2 hours to mow. Well then when we moved here part of our HOA is that they mow our lawns. Now, I would never, on my own, pay for that but we don’t have a choice. And you know what, it is very nice. Because I don’t have to think about it or worry about it, I just go out and my lawn is mowed! They also trim the bushes and put out new pine straw. It mean, I don’t have to think about it or worry about it, I don’t have to spend weekends toiling over my lawn. It is great because I don’t have to think about it.

The people of Israel had lost sight of God’s providence in their lives, they forgot the miraculous things that God did for them every day because they stopped thinking about it. For goodness sakes He MIRACULOUSLY provided manna from heaven each day! Literally bread appeared out of know where and then they would turn around and say “I don’t think our Lord is with us.” Even more than that he prevented their clothes from wearing out and He provided physical strength for their feet on the journey.

Then Moses says “keep in mind” as if to remind them “it was out of the Lord’s grace that He had provided these things as He hoped you would be able to trust in Him.” Keep in mind tells them that even though they had been complaining there were a lot of things that they weren’t noticing about God’s work in their lives. God discipline on them was not as a punishment but as a tool to prepare them for the troubled that are ahead.

In fact the writer of Hebrews reminds us of this passage. Hebrews 12:7-13 I

Hebrews 12:7–13 CSB

Endure suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline—which all receive—then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had human fathers discipline us, and we respected them. Shouldn’t we submit even more to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them, but he does it for our benefit, so that we can share his holiness. No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your tired hands and weakened knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed instead.

It is like a child who complains that He has to do some simple chores around the house, they ACT like it is some sort of punishment, like it is such a horrible atrocity that they were asked to get off the couch and empty the trash and scrub the toilets. “How dare my parents ask me to do the bare minimum of cleanliness.” But parents know that there is more to doing chores or getting a minimum wage job than just helping around the house. It helps to develop the correct habits in your children that will be necessary as they grow into adulthood. You could have cleaned the house by yourself, you could have gotten a car for them. But what can be considered an inconvenience is helping a child to be prepared for their future. In fact, to now force them to learn these important skills would mean that you didn’t care about their well-being. But even as you ask them to do the chores you provide for their needs more than they even realize.

But God is calling the people to remember how God had blessed them even through discipline. He is calling them to consider everything that He had done. So as we enter into 2022.

What have been the most blessed moments of your life in 2021?

Has there been a way, maybe an unexpected gift? Maybe there have been difficult moments this year but through all of it God has revealed, in small moments, how he brought you through it. As we look back at our last year and think about how God has provided for our needs and how he has blessed us we start to remember just how good He is. It helps us to refocus. That’s why Jesus in the Lord’s prayer says “give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts.” Both are a reminder that each day is reminder of God’s grace on us.

God has reminded us that He is faithful to His promises

After God has shown the people of Israel that He had led them through the difficult circumstances, as He reminds them of how He has blessed them, then He gives a promise for the future. He tells them “keep the commands of the Lord your God…for the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land where you will lack nothing.”

God has reminded you of all the things that they have been through and now He tells them “keep the commands of the Lord your God by walking in His ways and fearing Him.”

God’s covenant was predicated on them having faith and obeying His commands in order to receive the promises. Because if they didn’t show a willingness to trust the one who had up to this point protected them and cared for their needs, then how would they be able to receive the blessings that God had prepared for them in the future?

Listen to what the writer of Hebrews says

Hebrews 2:1-4 “For this reason, we must pay attention all the more to what we have heard, so that we will not drift away. For if the message spoken through angels was legally binding and every transgression and disobedience received a just punishment, how will we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? This salvation had its beginning when it was spoken of by the Lord, and it was confirmed to us by those who heard him. At the same time, God also testified by signs and wonders, various miracles, and distributions of gifts from the Holy Spirit according to his will.”

See, we as Christians have been given the Son of God as a reminder of His faithfulness. And not just His Son, but when Jesus ascended into heaven He then sent His Spirit to live in us to provide spiritual strength. So if we have the Spirit of God who lives in us then how confident should we be that God will follow through on His plan if we are obedient? In fact, as the writer says, don’t we have even more reason to not drift away than Israel since we have Christ?

We have had some cold weather around here the last few weeks and I’m sure one thing we all love about cold weather is when we walk out to our car and our windshield is frozen over. Now there are two ways to deal with a frozen windshield. You can take the smart route which is start defrosting before you need to drive or scrape the windshield off. OR, if you are like me, and you forgot about it until the moment you got in your car. Then what you do is blast the defrost and wait until you have a little hole in front of you that you can see just enough to drive through. But without much visibility you have to drive slower, you have to be much more cautious when you stop to look both ways to make sure a car isn’t coming, if you change lanes you to find a way to look behind you.

The Israelites were driving with decreased visibility, they had a hard time seeing the bigger picture. They were still waiting for the fullness of God’s plan to come together in Christ, they were still waiting know the complete power of the Holy Spirit indwelling in them. This is why the writer of Hebrews says how much more will we receive a just punishment if Christ has been revealed to us yet we still walk away? If God has testified in so many ways to us and shown us His complete power than why would we not drive forward in faith. We don’t walk forward cautiously with fear, thinking that everything will be bad and nothing will be good, thinking we would rather go back than move forward. But we say, “If God is for us who can be against us?” and “since I know of what God has planned for me then I will move forward in hope and confidence that He has good things waiting for me.”

This is what it means to have redemptive remembering, we consider all the ways that God has redeemed us as a reminder for why we should be faithful. And as our remembrance grows so does our faithfulness. So obedience to God is a result of continual remembrance of all that God has. Without this we lose focus, we start to rely on ourselves. It is a constant battle we face, it is why we pray when we eat, why we pray in the morning and at night. I think it is why we are called to memorize Scripture, to “meditate on it day and night so that I may be careful to do everything written in it.” So that we may never forget the Lord has carried us.

So the question we ask is...

In what ways will God carry you through 2022?

The reality is, we don’t know the answer to this question, but we can be confident that He can and that He will. There is a Psalm we are all familiar with, Psalm 136, we are familiar with it because of its common refrain through, “His faithful love endures forever.” Before each of these refrains the Psalmist gives us a reminder of how His faithful love endures forever. “He alone has done great wonders”, “He divided the Red Sea”, “He gave their land as an inheritance”.

So as we end today I want us to have reminders of God’s faithfulness. For a few minutes I want to open up the mic to those who might want to share how God’s love has endured. Just in a few sentences, nothing long. And as each person shares we will respond with “His faithful love endures forever”. So as we continue through this year we will know that He is with us.

If you are comfortable with this, I was thinking of opening the mic to those who would want to share in two sentences or less what they are thankful for.