Remember and Obey

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning we are at Deuteronomy chapter eight, verses 11 through 20. This is again about God's commandments, but remembering, remembering and obeying, they're tied together. So why don't we have some coffee? We'll pray and we'll get into God's word. Let's pray.
Lord, what a great blessing it is. To get to follow you, to get to hear from your word, Lord, we thank you that you have given us a way to remember you. You have given us a way to know who you are in your word. And so, Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit would be working in a powerful way in our hearts and in our lives, that we might know you, love you, follow you. Lord, we pray that you would please. Make your word effectual in our lives, in Jesus's name, Amen. All right, Deuteronomy chapter eight, beginning at verse 11, here we go.
Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, lest when you have eaten and are full and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them, And when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, when your heart is lifted up and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water, who brought water for you out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that he might humble you, and that he might test you, that you do good in the end. Then you say in your heart, My power and my might and my hand have gained me this wealth. and you shall remember the LORD your God. For it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant, which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the LORD your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. As a nations which Jehovah destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of Jehovah your God."
Well, we need to ask ourselves our three questions. A, what is this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do? So A, what is this passage even about?
Remember, Moses is telling them, you gotta remember. You gotta remember the Lord, you gotta keep his commandments, and these two things are tied together. Look with me at verse 12. Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments, his judgments, and his statutes, which I command you today. There's a symbiotic relationship. between the people's remembering who God is, and they're keeping his commandments.
These two work together in harmony, right? And so this is God saying, or Moses, God saying through Moses, right? One of the ways in which you're not gonna forget the Lord, he's not gonna become a distant memory in your far past, is that you will keep the commandments, the statutes, the judgments. As you keep them, you'll remember who he is, right? We just think of the preamble, right?
I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. This is God who redeemed them. You shall have no other gods before me. It is just Jehovah, their God, to listen to, to follow, to keep his commandments, his decrees, his statutes, to worship him alone, second commandment.
You shall not make for yourselves any graven images. And so they're not to do that. They're not to profane the Lord's name. They're not to treat him casually and like, oh yeah, that God, he redeemed us. That's what our grandparents said, but it's not really for us. No, no. When they go into the land, they're going to be tempted. They're going to be tempted very particularly with pride. They might forget the Lord, forget his commandments and think to themselves, I worked hard in the field.
That's how I made my wealth. I worked hard. I did these things. I made this money. And the Lord says, be careful. he humbled you in the desert so you wouldn't forget these things and in verse 18 and you shall remember the lord your god for it is he who gives you power to get wealth we don't have it in and of ourselves right the only reason why we have strength in our bones is because god gives it to us and so he says remember It is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He will establish His covenant, which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day." Right?
Don't forget the Lord. Don't forget that it's God who gave you the power to do these things. It's God who gave you the wealth. It's God who gave you the land. It's God who established the covenant. It's God who did all these things. Don't forget Jehovah, your God. That's what this whole passage is about. Best verse, I'm just gonna say verses 11 and 18.
I see calling, what are we called to do? Well, do you remember? Man, we are a forgetful people. We are so prone to just getting moving on in our daily lives, doing the stuff, getting the things done, marking off your task list, making the calendars, being productive. We're so productive that we don't even want to rest one day in seven. We want to imagine, that's an Old Testament God. We don't need a room. And you know, Oh, I don't need to really go to church. I could do church on my own type stuff.
And no, we are just as prone to forget. When God's word isn't in front of our eyes, we're so prone to just forget him. Even though the creation declares his glory. We're prone to just put them in the back of our mind and be busy acting like we're gods, acting like we've got the power, that we've done the work.
But God's got something better for us. God wants you to remember His goodness. God wants you to remember His covenant. God wants you to remember that He is the one who has done these amazing things. Don't forget you're God. especially don't forget what he has done in Jesus Christ for you and for me. He has cleansed us from our sins. He has imputed to us the righteousness of Jesus. He has given us the hope of the resurrection, and he has promised us that he is coming again to judge the living and the dead.
Don't forget the Lord your God. Follow after him. Be thankful for all he's done for you. Let's pray. Father, we confess to you that we are people who forget. Lord, we have short-term memory loss all the time. Father, we pray that we would remember you.
We pray that your spirit would so open our eyes with such a sense of awe and reverence and thankfulness and gratitude towards you, that we would keep your laws, that we would follow in your ways, that we would know who you are. In Jesus's name, amen. May the Lord bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace that comes from remembering that your Redeemer lives and that your God loves you. I'll see you next time. Bye.