8-24-25 - Remember, Do Not Forget

And I talked to Eric earlier this week. I was trying to figure out whether to preach on one verse or like reasons is because the next 15 or so verses are a retelling of their, Making of the Golden Calf at the Mount at Mount Sinai. And then there are three other examples given in short of their unfaithfulness to the Lord. But this verse, is sort of a foundation or a guiding principle through all of those, all of those, and foundation for when we come to these other passages. And coming weeks, we'll have a foundation or a grid or filter to process them.

Pay close attention and remember what we talk about, because for the next three weeks, we're not going to be in Deuteronomy. Eric's preaching next Sunday, and then the two weeks after that, we're going to be preach I'm going to preach two sermons about small groups. So it won't be until about a month from now that we're back at this passage. So, cover the themes again about a month from now. But as I said, we're just going to be covering it has a message in it that is not, passage that exhorts us to remember our former failures and sins.

Which is not the sort of thing that often Christians are told they ought to remember, but this is an important message. Foundation for the verses to come, my hope is that God will help us to understand why it's so important for us to remember our past sins

and in light of that, he would give us hope. This

is my goal In light of that, he would give us hope. This is my goal today. So do you please stand as you read the word of the Lord from Deuteronomy chapter nine. -Jaw, stop. -Jaw, stop.

-Jaw, stop. -Jaw, stop. -Jaw, stop. -Jaw, stop. -Jaw, stop.

-Jaw, stop. -Jaw, stop. -Jaw, stop. -Jaw, stop. -Jaw, stop.

-Jaw, stop. -Jaw, stop. -Jaw, stop. -Jaw, stop. -Jaw, stop.

- strenuousness or hardship, and hopefully motivated to go out on the field and do all the things he said. Those are the things to be done out on the And I wonder what we would consider of a coach who came to his team and said, you know, guys. You problem is that you forget every time you go into a game, you forget how poorly you played last time. I think you forgot how you let that goal go in. I think you quit five minutes before the game was over.

I think you did this, and you did that. And I want you to remember those And imagine what the parents Remember and do not forget. You provoke the Lord, your God, to wrath in the wilderness. Remember it and do not. Body, say, and his healing power.

None of which are bad to remember. I don't mean to denigrate any of that. But when was the last time you heard any body say? Do you remember how angry you made the Lord last? Gonna say it.

-Yeah. -And here, the Israelites were told to remember how they had repeatedly provoked God. Now, I've only put up on the screen for this morning, a verse, Horrors. It's also called Mount Sinai, which is the place where they came out of Egypt. Received the 10 commandments.

They camped there forty days, forty nights. Moses went up on the mountain. While Moses was up on the mountain, they say, hey, we don't know what happened to that guy. Hey, Aaron. Would you make for us?

They provoked God to at the end toward the end of Moses' time with the Lord, he tells them these go down there for their acting wickedly and committing idolatry. The store. Right? They promise to obey God and he takes the thing they're supposed to obey and he takes it and he smashes it. So they demonstrate to them.

You have broken the law. And then he takes the golden calf and he grinds it up into a powder and burns it into, you know, and then puts it in the water. They provoked him to wrath. It's the sort of thing you'd like to not be reminded of. But the next 14 or so verses after this is After that, in short form, Moses reminds him of three other times.

He said, says, At and complained against the Lord for their and the Lord heard them. He heard their grumbling and they're complaining and his his response was to And again, that's a and again, that's a and again, that's a and and and and and and and and and and and and and and

and and and and and and and and and and and and and and

and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and This is where he struck the rock, where the Lord told him strike the rock and the water will come forth. They were ready to kill Moses and he knew it. He goes to the Lord and he's like these people are gonna kill me. They're they're they've provoked God. And then at Kibrav and then at Kibrav Yeah.

And then at Kibrav Yeah. They wanted meet they wanted meet we deserve meet we need meet like back in Egypt. And so the scripture says that even while the meet was still between their just as they had taken a bite of it, their greed, they gathered it all up for themselves. So, this. So why does Moses exhort them in this way?

Why does he tell them? If you think of, of, of these chapters of

Deuteronomy, they sort of go back in We've just come off of a

of an encouragement to and to claim and to believe in the promises of God. They're members of the covenant. They ought to bless him and thank him. And now we're swinging back over into a and these chapters of Deuteronomy sort of have this pendulum swing. We need to keep both sides in view.

So we've swung over into the side where we need to be reminded or exhorted or warned away from because of our propensity to forget. In the past, whether it was the past, whether it was good or bad. Now, there's an interesting wrinkle about this. We don't forget everything that's good. What we forget is the good that was done to us.

The good we remember is the good we did for other people. We remember the good things we did, but never the good things that were done for us. And concerning bad things that happened, we forget all the bad things we commit. But we remember the bad things that happened to us. We accuse God for the bad that was done to us and we steal his glory away for the good that was done by us.

This is exactly the opposite of what it should be. And so Moses exhorts us not to remember the good we've done or the bad done against us, but the bad that we've done and the Lord's response. How quick are you to accept responsibility for failures? Like, I mean, you who have kids. You know when they break something?

And then they just hide it somewhere where it's it'll be found. What is it that goes on in a child's head when they do that? Do they really think that it will never be found? The truth is, in the moment, they do. They think, I hope, I hope I never get called to account for what I just did.

And then pointed out to them. And you asked the question that every parent, who did this? How this happened? And eventually, if there's multiple kids, you know, you won't get I did it. At least not from the young ones.

Maybe the older ones have been trained to where they But the younger ones won't say I did it. What they will give is an excuse for how it happened and how it wasn't their fault that they did. And that's the first word out of their mouth, is how it's not their fault, even though they're the one who did it. And so you listen and you figure out what happened and was there a fight and something else. But in the end, the thing is still broken.

But they don't want to take responsibility for it. And they really do believe it's not their fault. Extenuating circumstances. It's out of my control. Nothing could be done.

The difficulty we have is that we don't outgrow that. We may get more sophisticated in the way that we present. Maybe we don't hide it. Maybe we come and we say, hey, boss, I broke this thing, but here's what happened. And it was never I was an idiot, or I wasn't paying attention, or I was on my phone, and that's why I wrecked your truck, or whatever.

It was some other thing happened. We have a blame. We think that if we can delay and obfuscate and evade the issue long enough, it'll just kind of fade into the past. And we all know that once something's in the past, we don't have to worry about it anymore. And we do live that way, realize thinking that whatever's happened in the past, once it's far enough in the past, we don't have to worry about it anymore.

Because it's like way back there. Happened a long time ago. Why are you bringing that up again type of thing? We'll even fight and defend ourselves in the moment when we get caught just so that we can get past it and forget what we've done as quickly as possible. When we fail, we use comparison to comfort ourselves.

Well, I'm not as bad. I didn't do that. Well, do you see what that person did? Yes. The child says, yes.

I broke the lamp. But you know what he did? But what they don't realize is it's possible for there to be two really offensive events that happened in the first and and the first one doesn't make the second one any less offensive. Broken. But we do comfort ourselves with that.

We say, well, they did it first. Well, they did it worse. Well, they do it more often. I really don't like to sit quiply as possible. And it's not because we just went out of it in the moment.

We just want completely out and away from it. We just want completely out and away from it. We just want completely out and away from it. We just want completely out and away from it. We just want completely out and away completely out and away from it.

We don't ever we just want it in the rearview mirror gone away. We'll distract ourselves. I think a lot of the use of are or what you've done. You just you just distract and feed yourself, overwhelm your brain and your heart with a 100 other things that don't have anything to do with you. But it's a nice distraction.

And we live our lives. It's a form of a a a a a a a

a a a

a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a entertaining. Some of you probably eat, some of you probably sleep, some of you probably work you go work yourself, so you're so tired that you just fall asleep and your brain doesn't work anymore. You get up in the morning with more responsibilities and things, and you just keep yourself spinning and going on the the hamster wheel. So you don't have to remember. The hamster wheel.

So you don't have to remember. It's not good. There are times where you need to stop and you need to sit in it and listen and think about it for a while. Be humbled by it. I've also found that when I as a pastor or the elders guaranteed jet fuel.

If you remind somebody of something they did a long time

ago, they get really angry. You get

really angry. You get really angry when they get really angry. You get really angry when that happens. It's really And do you think we have a leg to stand on to say, you can't talk about that anymore. That has nothing to do with our current situation, our life.

You can't bring it up. You can't bring it up. You can't bring it up. You can't bring it up. You can't bring it up.

You can't bring it up. You can't bring it up. You can't bring bring it up. You can't God forgave me of that. It's in the I'm going to come to this a little more in the future, but I just in our sermon, but I want to say, really don't like having our past sins brought up.

We really don't like

having our past sins brought up. We don't like having our past sins brought up. We don't like having our past sins brought up. We don't like having our past sins brought up. We don't like having our past sins brought up.

We don't like to say to you, there's there's a there's a way of doing it that is wrong and sinful and should be avoided. Should be brought back to your mind so that you can be guilty. So you can, you can, you can go through the A A A A A A A A A A A A

A A A A A A A A A A A

A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A future, it's essential that we remember our past. Do you ever ask yourself, how many times am I going to do this before I realize that I have a propensity to do this? Day or a week or a month later, I sinned again and I ask for forgiveness and then it's a then there's no ever present danger. Exactly what Moses is doing here. Remember and do not forget how you provoke the Lord your God to wrath and the Wilbur and the recall to your mind the last forty years.

And I'll mention a few to get you started. But remember, Here's something you have to know about your sins. In this world, what is that? In this world, the worst thing about your past sins shaping influence on you. Meaning, we're being foolish if we think is that my mic you're turning off?

Shall I wait a second? Do you have any idea what's beeping?

We

appreciate you. We good, Lucas, play, no more, we hope. Okay. We're gonna remind you if it happens again. This is the second time.

It's the third time. Someone make a procedure to prevent that from happening again. Okay. Where were they? Yes.

Pastions sins shape us. Here's the thing about our sins. They're a fact. We think, I can do this sin. I can, I can give myself this thing, and it won't have any lasting impact on?

That is not true. It will have a lasting impact on. It's almost as though we live thinking that the only thing that matters or is is worthy worthy of consideration is whether the sin is forgiven or not. And it's not the only thing to be considered. It is to be considered.

It is important. But if we're to actually grow in holiness and actually become like Jesus, we're actually going to have to look at ourselves in a new way. I do a new way. And say, what is it that what in what way am I most likely able to answer that. Because not every sin, not every temptation is equal in all men or all women.

What are you most likely to do It would do as well to be able to say that's that's the thing. And to not forget it. Because the more we give ourselves to it, or the more that we allow it in our lives to to shape and impact us, the more it will change. And if you're not able to see that yourself, or when you're not able to see that yourself and someone else points it out to you, you should be thankful. You seem to be pretty consistent.

And and and time and their Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of doubt? Effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of doubt. Why does he do this long list? Is he just is he just going on talking about random sins that that that might fall into in the future? No.

Don't be that dense. What he's doing is naming their sins. And when he says swindler, like, ah, it's me. And we know that because the next verse says, such were some of you. Such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God.

Does that mean that he was wrong to name their forms? There's also some in that group that are saying, that's still you. Because such were some of you. And Paul's saying so, prob is a call to rip to turn away from them before they God. Do you think anyone in their church got mad at them?

Him for saying that. And like the sins that we all know each other commits, but we don't just say it out loud or wear a t shirt with it on it. But if we just and said, hey, you know, you remember that? You remember that, how that happened? You see, like, remember five years ago?

Remember ten years ago? Do you remember how hard that was? Remember how embarrassing? You guys remember, like, we had a big congregational meeting where we just remembered all of our past sins in public, in front of everybody. We really don't like to have our sins pointed out.

And so Moses but Moses tells us to remember and not to forget them. If they abuse that knowledge of our former sins and hold it over our heads, it doesn't make our last our former sins any less true. We can both be forgiven and remember our formers. These things are not mutually exclusive. They're not opposed to each other.

You ever been with somebody who's going to tell the story of their past sins and it just makes you uncomfortable? Because you know they're going to start crying and get upset and why do we all have to go through this? Remember it and to feel it. And what you'll observe if you pay attention is that they don't simply remember the act, but they remember all the lessons they learned from. And all

of God's mercy to them in the midst of the and what you'll observe if you

pay attention is that they don't simply remember the act, but they remember all the lessons they learned from. And And all of God's mercy to them in the midst of the and all of the hellfire. They avoided through repentance of it. They don't just remember their but they remember all of the context and what was done and what was done and what was done and what was done and what was done and what was done

and what was done and what was done and what was done

and what was done and what So is it appropriate to ask people who are forgiven, to command people who are forgiven of their sins to remember their sins? I asked this question because Moses doubles down in the second half of this verse. He doesn't just say remember and do not forget. He then gives the context and he says from the day that you left the land of Egypt until you've arrived at this place so he puts he books mark bookmarks it. Right?

From the day that you left Egypt to now, From the day that you left Egypt to now, you have been rebellious against the law. We touched on this a bit last week saying it's a it's a very strange thing

that this rebellious, stubborn, stiff necked people are being given

such a good stubborn, stiff necked people are being given such a good thing. Why are they being given such a good thing? Moses tells them that they're stubborn in the verse preceding this. Now he tells them they're rebellious. And as we go through the rest of the verse, I want to think it's three or four times he refers to them as a rebellious people.

You're rebellious people. You're rebellious people. You're a stiff neck rebellious people. Is it appropriate to address God's people in those terms? They don't like it though.

Were they always rebellious against the Lord in those forty years? No. There were times when some of them were contrite and sorry for their sins and obedient to the lord. So there were both people who were rebellious and and doubled down in their rebellion when things got hard. And there were those who were rebellious and repented.

And I suspect that there were those who resisted those that grumbling and complaining and those sins all together. But the danger to rebel against the Lord is So they were rebellious at times. Other times they were contrite and sorry for their sins. The real the we face is to live as though forgiveness precludes any mention or remembrance of our power of forgiveness and the grace and mercy of God to say, well, we we we have this terrible sin, but we can't talk about it anymore because it's just too it's got too much life and it's it's we can remember it so that we don't fall into it again. Now I want to come and ask you a question.

What is the utility or the benefit of remembering our sins? Why should we remember them? They're exhorted to remember and not to forget. Because they still need to be paid for. This isn't the this isn't this isn't Moses saying you've been sent to collections.

You have an old past debt that still needs to be paid on. That's not what's going on. Uh-oh. Hard days. It's contagious today.

Eric's left with his kids. My wife's left with his kids. A little bit. During the service. You know, This is what I'm talking about.

And I was like, you can't say that. But we can say it, right? Because we all know it. So we love you and your kids. And we all have work to do with our kids.

We should remember them because we actually want to be a humble people. And our pride is such that if we aren't constantly fighting it, It will just grow. And so a way to humble ourselves is to remember who we are and what we are. Can you point to maybe some of you can't and that's alright, but some of you probably can point to instances in your life where there was, there was a fork in the road and you had a decision to make. And you And you and you're just and you're just walking down the other path in your mind and considered the destruction that was there considered the destruction that was there, if God hadn't been merciful to you at that point, I have There's nothing but the pit of hell at the other end of that.

And so it's good for me to remember that how difficult it was to decide obedience at that one point and recognize how pivotal it was in my entire life going forward. It humbles us to

remember that. It's good for us to to be reminded. It's good for us to to be reminded. It's good for us to to be reminded. It's good for us to to be reminded.

It's good for us to to be reminded. It's good for us to to be reminded.

It's good for us to to be reminded. It's good sins. It's to remind us of the Lord's mercy. That's some of what I just was talking about. His kindness that's brought you.

It's not because you're better than somebody else. It's not because you're less sinful. It's because God's born with you. You should also remember your sins as a protection to keep you from falling into them again. This is an interesting one because we would agree with this principle in other areas of life.

In business, owners make bad decisions. Right? It's inevitable. They screw stuff up. They think the market's gonna do this, and they they head that direction.

They find out that they're wrong. Happens. What do we expect them to do when that happens? We expect them to learn their lesson, to course correct, and to not make that mistake again. Right?

We actually think it's good for them to remember the pain of that bad decision. So, like, have the the chill go down their neck of like, oh, that was oh, I don't ever want to do that again. We think the same thing is true with home renovation. Think you're going to fix something, all of a sudden you realize there's a 100 more problems and it's a big deal. And you're just like, no to self.

Don't ever let that happen again. These areas, we realize that remembering the past has present benefit. It helps keep us protected from doing the same dumb thing again. So why is it that we're opposed to this concept in our spiritual lives, Why are you a post to it? I think we're opposed to it because we see it as sort of a it's it's it's really an affront to God's forgiveness.

We really do I think it's deep seated in American evangelicalism that if you're forgiven, there's nothing more to be done, learned, or considered pertaining to our sense. And I think that's harmful to us. And I think that's harmful to us. And and I think that's harmful to our How else do we learn who we are and what we're if we don't remember? If we have a principle against not when Set up safeguards and protections to never do it again.

Make them uncomfortable, to ensure that they never do it again. But when it comes to our spiritual life, we just slap some grace on it and say, go on your way. Nothing more nothing more to see here. This is the trap of cheap grace and superficial Christianity, where

sin is no big deal because Jesus died for me.

That is the depth and breadth. Because Jesus died for me. That is the depth and breadth of the whole gospel is Jesus died for sins. So you don't have to think about it, deal with it, consider it, or learn from it any more.

And that is the surest way. And that

is the surest way. Sins. It'd be like having your kid run out into the tree. You know, give them a bike. They learn how to ride.

They don't know how the brakes work, right? They learn the pedals before they learn the brake. And you send them down the driveway. And they, they ride out into the road. And you run out there once, and you're like, oh, oh, oh.

Snatch them out away from the, from the car. And you're great? And then just give them their bike and go back in the house and let them do it. And then just

give them their bike and go back in

the house and let them do it. And

then you would all recognize that as neglect in parenting. That would be, there's so much more that needs to be said to that child and done for that child to prevent that And isn't it curious that with spiritual when it comes to our our spiritual lives, we're like, no, it'll be And Thousands and thousands of dollars of Thousands and thousands of dollars a car, you know, maybe you bought a car in marketplace, and you're like, hey. Here's $15,000 because they're not gonna take a personal check from you and give you a car. Like, you're gonna have to Venmo me, but no, we're old Luddites who don't have Venmo. Cash.

You're going to the bank and gotten $15,000 of cash out and then walked over and handed it to somebody. What's the feeling inside of It hurts, painful. When you when you have the real money in your hand, you're like, I just don't know that I want to give you all of this. I don't care how much you think it's worth. This is mine, and I don't know if what getting is worth it.

You have these, these conflicts in your mind. You have these, these conflicts in your mind.

And you have these, these conflicts in your mind. And you have these, these conflicts in your mind. And you have these, these You have these these conflicts in your mind, right? And it's because you're aware of the cost. Are you aware of the cost of your sins?

Do you have any of those pangs of consciousness? Conscience? Are you just like, no, put it on my credit card. It's fine. We'll we'll pay the balance when it comes to You don't feel any pain then, right?

You just get all the Look at this nice, I got this thing. Maybe you're like, I know I probably shouldn't do this, but it'll be fine. But it's not fine. It doesn't end up fine. It ends up with 25% interest.

It doesn't end up fine. Right? And you're like, oh, man. I'm an idiot. I was so stupid.

But then you I'm not gonna do that again. Come preach the sermon, man. You're right on it. Then we do it again. Then we just do it again.

And we do it again. And we do it again. Because we're stupid. Because we don't count the cost. The cost of the wrath of God against us for the thing we did.

Do not forget how you provoke the Lord your God to wrath. Energy and effort you spend trying to keep other people from learning about it, or know about it, or be affect or be harmed by it? We don't want them to be hurt. We don't want them to be harmed. We don't want them to suffer as a result of our sins.

We don't want to adversely affect them by our choices. We don't want to adversely affect them by our choices. We don't want to adversely affect them by our choices.

We don't want to adversely affect them by our choices. And we have a choice. We can either not go after the sin. We can go after it, but try to like shield them from a How much energy does it take to shield somebody from the knowledge and impact of your choices? And the knowledge and impact of your choices?

How good are you at shielding them from a Do you know why? Do you know why do you know what people say to pastors when they're on their death bed? Many times, do you know what people say to them? Things they never told anybody. Things that never did get found out.

And what do we know about them? And what do we know about them? We know that they've remembered them. But because they never confessed them and because they never, bore them, hiding of their sins for years and decades have shaped them and their opinions about and all comes out right at the end of their life. And I'm telling you that because I don't want that to be you or me.

If you're going to remember your sins, humble you. If you're going to remember your sins, and they remind you of the Lord's mercy. If you're going to remember your sins, and they they protect you from falling into it again. If they if you're going to remember your sins, and you so that you can see the cost of them, the whole point of it is to keep you from them. The whole point is not to make you miserable about the past.

The truth is, what you've done in the past, you can't fix it. Maybe you can make some amends or some, some, reparations or restitution. Poiety feed my sheep, and these No, it's because Peter denied him three times. And so he comes to him three times. Do you love me?

And what's Peter? What's like hate thinking? Place that Peter came to, not the place that Judas -And then -But you can't come to the place that Peter came to if you're unwilling to remember any of your past traitors. Many of us are happy to have our wounds healed superficially because of the pain of having them healed sufficiently. You ever gone to the doctor and then say, yeah, we can fix that, but it's gonna hurt.

Like, you've got some level of pain, and they're like, we can fix it, but you're in the short term, your pain is gonna go way up. And then it'll be better. And we say, no. Just give me a cortisone shot. I don't wanna feel it.

Give me a steroid so I don't feel the pain, so I can increase the damage. And when it hurts again, I'll come get another cortisone shot. Except, I'll tell you, at some point the cortisone stops working. And now what? Now we're on to pain killers.

All because we prefer to have our our sins, our new hip, or a new knee, or a new whatever. Or we need to stop doing that thing that's causing the problem.

And we need to stop doing that thing that's causing the problem.

And we need to stop doing that thing that's causing the problem. Saved. This is the past to being saved from your sins, to actually growing in holiness. When Paul said to the Corinthians, you were this and you were that and you were the other thing, he wasn't being mean to And then And then And then And then and then And then and then and then and then and then and then and then a Yeah. And to those who that was true of in there, I have no doubt that they praised God for a Yeah.

Strengthened to resist those temptations that were still Yeah. And so it's difficult to live as a as a Christian in the tension between remembering our sins and that they are forgiven and that they're still tempting. It's why Paul explains in Romans, Wretched man that I am. Who will set me free from the body of this death? I don't do the things I want to do.

I do the things I don't want to do. But at the end when he exclaims, Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? He says, Thanks be to God, through jis, the one who will set you Do you have any memories in your of like, you touched the hot stove and it really, really hurt, and then when you went back, you had a, like, a flashback, you had a moment of PTSD. You're like, oh, no.

That's the kind of remembrance here. Your hands all healed up. You don't have a burn anymore. But you have the memory. It it there's an it's imprinted on you.

And it's a protection to you. The fool is the one who doesn't let himself be warned against danger, but has to go fall into it face first to realize it's Yeah. From your past mistakes. Learn from the mistakes of other people and the sins. When you see someone fall into sin, God's giving you a gracious a couple of weeks, we're going to go through some of those examples that he gives them.

I'll close today by saying, this ought to be a daily habit in your life. It ought to be a daily habit in your life. You ought to know

what your where your pitfalls are at, and you show

it to daily where your pitfalls are at and you shot to daily be warring against them. So you don't fall into the pit. Let's pray.