I want to ask you a question as we get started today. When was the last time you really thought about all that God has done for you?  I mean, like, really stopped and thought about your salvation and all the things God has provided for you and brought you through?  I don’t know what it is, but I’ve been feeling nostalgic lately.  Maybe it’s our 25^th birthday as a church coming up soon; maybe it’s this study of the children of Israel’s journey all summer and thinking how similar our journeys are to theirs; maybe it’s just watching so many people find Christ and get baptized this year, but I’ve been thinking back over the last 25 years of ministry a lot lately.  And that act of thinking back over the years, over my own journey, and our churches has been a total blessing, but to be honest, that snuck up on me, and I don’t spend a lot of time looking back.  It isn’t something I do a lot.  I’m great at setting goals and pushing forward in life, but not at looking back.  Frankly, looking back hasn’t always been easy for me, because this journey hasn’t been all that easy at times.  There were painful and disappointing moments over the years, and I think at times, just to protect my own heart, I stopped looking back and remembering all we have walked through.  I would justify that with this line from Solomon, and he is really smart, so this must be right… 

Ecclesiastes 7:10 Don’t long for “the good old days.” This is not wise. NLT

Whew, that can be so true, especially when you have been at the same church in the same town for 25 years, we’ll just say that a lot of water flows under the bridge in that amount of time…but, Solomon didn’t say don’t remember all the amazing things God has done in your life; he said we shouldn’t long for what was while we are living in what is…and lately I’ve been spending time remembering so many incredible moments, the people, the stories, the joy of finding Jesus in my own life, and the amazing gift of getting to be part of this Spiritual Family.  I’ve even been going back and praying in some of the old spots I used to pray, and it’s bringing fresh life and energy to me, and just makes me more excited to keep going and keep engaging the mission of Christ…it’s been an absolute gift to remember God, and all He has done for me, and us over the years.  I remember what it felt like to be far from God, and I remember what it felt like to realize that God forgave me, loves me, saved me, and wanted to use someone as imperfect as me to help others find Him, and it brings energy and life in a time when I have needed the extra boost, just like the writer of Hebrews said it will…

Hebrews 12:3 When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! MSG

The key is to remember!  To never let that get too far out of your heart and mind, and if you notice those people that serve with such joy, or don’t seem to ever get tired of serving, or sharing Jesus with others, it’s because they remember what Jesus has done for them.  The key is to never forget all that God has done for us, but in so many ways that it is easier said than done, and today we will jump into an incredible moment in Scripture where Moses warns them not to forget God when they get into the promised land.  Today we talk about the key to living a passionate life of faith, to never burn out or grow weary, and that is to remember God.  Which sounds simple, but it’s not, is it?  Something special happens when we remember God and all He has done in our lives.  

Last week Ken took us into Deuteronomy, which is a powerful book filled with Moses’ final warnings and guidance to the children of Israel before they cross the Jordan River and finally enter their new home.  In chapter 7, we learned about a subtle way our enemy takes ground in our lives.  Moses warns them not to compromise. Such a big deal in life today.  So often we spiritually drift away from God over time; we can end up far from God, looking more like the world around us than followers of Christ. It’s sneaky; it happens gradually, then one day we have a moment of clarity and think to ourselves…how did I get here?  Ken told us that while it’s easy to drift in life, we need to understand how dangerous compromise really is.  It is the easy way; it does the least possible, and it never feels like a big deal, but it is.  The way through was to realize you are God’s special treasure, so we should live disciplined, God-focused lives by embracing God’s commands. That talk was incredibly important in our culture today, which puts constant pressure on us to look and act like the world.  And let’s face it, it is easy to go with the flow and not realize we are losing ground and pulling away from God.  As I listened to his talk, and he brought up different areas of our lives and how we just do the easy thing, and wondered how we get to the difficult or unhealthy places we find ourselves in, I kept thinking of this quote… 

“People are addicted to easy.  And easy is the reason their life is hard.” Unknown

Now today we will study Deuteronomy 8.  And I do think the context is important here.  Moses is giving his final lessons to the people in his care.  He won’t go into the Promised Land with them, so these words have a special urgency from Moses as they stand on the edge of the Promised Land. They have been through the wilderness. They have watched God provide for them and protect them in miraculous ways. And now, after all this time, effort, and pain, they are finally about to enter the land God promised them.  They have faced many tests and trials as God continues to teach them to love Him most and trust Him fully.  But if you are paying attention, the tests and trials have shifted as they get closer to the Promised Land.  They have gone from big, scary, life-threatening issues to deeper matters of the heart.  Have you noticed that over the last few weeks of the series?  We have moved from terrifying life-and-death issues to more subtle, challenging, and in many ways deeper issues of the heart, and that is important to see, because God wants ALL of us…all of our hearts, and in this chapter, we see Moses give them an urgent warning. Not because things are going to get worse. But because things are about to get better. And I think that's important. Because we tend to think the greatest danger to our faith is when life gets hard. Sometimes it is. But Moses says there is another danger, and it’s a lot more dangerous than it looks. It’s comfort, security, and having enough. I’m not sure we could hit anything more important to Christians living in our world today. Are you ready? And Moses gives us a simple and clear way to combat this issue, and so important…here’s the warning.  

Don’t forget God.  Remember! 

Moses is about to ask: What happens when life gets good? What happens when our prayers get answered, and the bills are paid? What happens when we are all healthy and succeeding in life? What happens when life feels pretty good?  Why ask this?  Well, it’s easy in those moments to forget God: Who would do that?  Who would be blessed, healthy, and comfortable and forget God?  Well, we would. We do.  Their story is our story.  And that is the warning of Deuteronomy 8.

Deuteronomy 8:2 Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands. NLT

So, Moses wants them to understand that the wilderness was not wasted time. They probably thought it was. They probably wondered why God had them wandering around out there. But Moses says, remember it. Remember what God taught you there. Remember how He provided. Remember how you learned to depend on Him. Remember how you learned that you couldn't do this on your own; and I’m sure at this time they are thinking, Moses, how could we forget!  Let’s keep going here…

Vs. 3: Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. NLT

So why did God let them go hungry?  He was teaching them how much they need God in their lives. He is saying, “You need Me when you're hungry and thirsty. You need Me when you're afraid and when you don't know where you're going. You need Me when you don't understand what is going on in life or what I’m up to!”  And I think, for the most part, when we are in a painful or scary place, or just struggling, we know we need God in our lives; that is clear to us, but there is about to be a problem.  They were about to enter a place where they won’t be hungry, thirsty, and afraid; they were about to enter a place where they were not going to feel like they needed God. And Moses is pointing out something that we really need to see.  Comfort is often more dangerous than challenging times in our lives.  We still need God in the good times; we just don’t feel like we do. Listen to this…

Deuteronomy 8:7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills. 10 When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. NIV

Well, this sounds wonderful after over 40 years of wandering in the desert, just happy to survive each day!  They have to be thinking, “Okay, Moses, love the speech, but we are in; call up the band and wrap up this talk; we want to go experience this land and this plenty, but then Moses points it out…

11 Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. NIV

Moses' warning is that when we have more than enough, when we are comfortable, we must be careful not to forget God…and that is different, isn’t it?  I mean, when we are hurting, scared, or struggling, we get how much we need God.  When the doctor calls, or the marriage is falling apart, or the kids are struggling, we know we need Him.  When the job disappears, or the diagnosis comes, or a financial issue hits, we pray and reach out to Him.  But what about when everything is okay? That's when we can settle down and stop pursuing God, because we just don’t feel like we need Him. Now, we might say we still need Him, but there’s no urgency because life is good, and the scary part is that people who love God aren't doing this intentionally. We aren’t waking up one morning and saying, “Today I'm going to forget God.” It doesn't happen like that. It's sneaky, slow, and subtle. Comfort can lead to the spiritual drift Ken talked about last week.  We get busy. We get distracted. We get comfortable, and God just slowly gets crowded out of our lives.  I love the way Paul describes that spiritual drift here in Romans 13...

Romans 13:11 But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. MSG

It’s slow and sleepy, and we never intentionally reject God; we just don’t feel a deep need for Him, and we can feel like we are doing okay in life without Him.  Comfort has an amazing ability to cause spiritual amnesia; we just forget God when we don’t feel we need His help in any way… and in the world today, comfort may be the greatest danger we face as Christians. It’s not that we hate God or that we don't believe in God. We just get so comfortable that we don't really need to think about God very much at all.  And Moses is warning them and all of us: don’t forget God.  Remember He got you here!

This is a good spot to talk for a minute about us here at MRC.  We are approaching our 25th birthday celebration…and that is an awesome thing to celebrate and remember this incredible journey we have been on as a Spiritual Family.  But the temptation can be to look at all we have done, built, and accomplished…look at our building, lights, ministries, technology, and all these stories…and think, look at what we have done…we must be careful not to forget who actually did it…this celebration isn’t about our accomplishments but all that God has done these last 25 years.  So, we left off with Moses’ saying: when you have plenty and feel comfortable, you need to be careful…  

Deuteronomy 8:14 Do not become proud at that time and forget the Lord your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. 15 Do not forget that he led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its poisonous snakes and scorpions, where it was so hot and dry. He gave you water from the rock! 16 He fed you with manna in the wilderness, a food unknown to your ancestors. He did this to humble you and test you for your own good. 17 He did all this so you would never say to yourself, ‘I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy.’ 18 Remember the Lord your God. He is the one who gives you power to be successful. NLT

Do you see what Moses is warning them about? It isn't about work or success. It isn't that comfort is bad or that they shouldn’t have wealth or nice things. The problem is forgetting where that all comes from. The danger is believing: “I did this.” And Moses says, “No. Never forget, God did this, not you.” Yes, you worked hard, but God gave you the strength. Yes, you loved people and served, but God gave you the opportunities.  Yes, hearts were changed, but God changes hearts, not you. You built and gave, but God provided and gave you something to give.  You are not the source; God is.  In our comfort, we can lose sight of that.  And as we look back at twenty-five years of ministry, we aren’t celebrating what we have done; we aren’t celebrating what MRC has accomplished. The celebration is over what God has done, and sometimes in our accomplishments, in our air-conditioned buildings, with our apps and lights, we get comfortable, and in that comfort we can lose sight of that. 

I will tell you a story about MRC. One of the most exciting times for our church was us moving from a church setting up and tearing down in the school to this building we are in today.  But I will never forget a moment Ken and I shared after that very first service here; we were kind of processing a wild first Sunday in this building after everyone had left.  We had a lot of excitement, and a lot of people wanting to check us out.  Now, this was years of work and planning coming together, but for most people, we met in a school one Sunday and, the next, we met in a nice building of our own.  We went from rolling shelving units out of trailers into the hallways, and rolling out carpets, and hanging cloth with magnets on the lockers to make classrooms for children’s ministry, and setting up and tearing down screens, speakers, and equipment each week for church, to just walking in, turning on the lights, pushing a few buttons, and enjoying the day…and after that first Sunday, listening to everyone talk about the lights, the sound, the size of the classrooms, the kitchen, the internet, why we don’t have one thing or another, or why one area seemed nicer than another… Ken looked right at me and said, “We are going to need to plant another church very soon,” and I agreed completely.  Why? Why on a Sunday, when we should be patting ourselves on the back, did we see danger?  Shouldn’t this have been the time to rest and enjoy our new building after all the work and energy? It’s because we watched a shift into comfort, and in our comfort, and more than enough, we saw an immediate shift into self-focus.  And in our newfound comfort, we saw the danger of forgetting the whole point: to reach out and share God’s love with those around us who are far from Him…and it was clear how quickly we could settle down and forget that.

And that's what Moses is trying to teach Israel here. Remember. Remember where you came from. Remember all God did and all He brought you through. Something happens when we never forget what God has done and continues to do for us.  This is the key to passion and joy in your life.  And something happens when we get comfortable and lose sight of all God has done and is doing in our lives: we get complacent and lose passion for Him, and our only worry becomes keeping and protecting our own comfort.  The key is to never forget the Lord your God.  And we need to see that it isn’t the hard and challenging times that cause us to forget God; we get that we need Him in those times…it’s in the comfort…Moses is saying the real danger is in front of you; it will be when you have more than enough. You know it’s funny, but to a Spiritual leader like Moses, the wilderness was safer than the comfort of the promised land.  I am not sure his people would agree, but it’s in the challenges and difficulty of the wilderness that they understood their desperate need for God.  Every morning they needed manna. Every day they needed God. They had no choice. But now they are going into a land with houses they didn’t even need to build, fields they didn’t need to plant…they are about to have everything they need just handed to them. And Moses warns them to be careful, because this is far more dangerous than what we faced out in the wilderness when we knew we needed God.

Deuteronomy 8:11-14 Make sure you don’t forget God…Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up—make sure you don’t become so full of yourself and your things that you forget God, your God, the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery…17-18 If you start thinking to yourselves, “I did all this. And all by myself. I’m rich. It’s all mine!”—well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors—as it is today. MSG

Think about that. When you're comfortable. When things are going well. When you've got what you wanted. That's when you need to be especially careful.  And I mean, they are talking about having more than enough to eat and a shelter to live in, and in the culture you and I live in, we have more extra and comfort in life than ever before, and without knowing it, I think comfort in many ways has become the thing we pursue, rather than God…now we wouldn’t call it a religion, but in many ways, comfort has become that in our world today.  We have more stuff, wealth, and extra than Moses could have imagined.  Can you picture telling him we can get in a car and drive long distances, with phones telling us turn-by-turn directions, with air conditioning, running water, internet, high-cushioned shoes for walking, etc.  Moses was worried about them having more than enough to eat and a bed; he would be terrified for us today. We have entertainment available 24 hours a day. Food delivered to our doors. Cars that tell us where to go. Phones that can answer almost any question. Money. Homes. Technology. Convenience. And yet we feel so empty, restless, anxious, lonely, and exhausted. Why? Because comfort was never designed to be our God. And when we start asking comfort to give us what only God can, it will always disappoint us and leave us empty.  

So how do we deal with this? I mean, what do we need to do to keep from forgetting the Lord our God?  Well, what’s really cool is that Moses doesn’t just warn us about this problem; he tells us what to do to avoid it, and I see four ways Moses tells us we can avoid this comfort-based spiritual amnesia. 

First, we need to intentionally look back and remember. I told you earlier, I’m not always into this; I like moving forward, and looking back can be painful at times. But the problem with not looking back is we can lose sight of all we should be grateful for and all the ways we are blessed. We can forget what God has done for us.  We need to remember, and we live in a world that is really good at helping us forget God and all that He has done for us.  If you think back over this summer study, Moses is constantly reminding them where they were and all that God has done for them, and we need to do this too…it’s why things like celebrating our 25 years as a Spiritual Family can be so important…We have to be intentional about this because if you don't intentionally remember what God has done, life will convince you that you did it.  Remembering God will sustain you through life. 

The second thing we need to do is praise God in the good times, when we have enough.  

Vs. 10 When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. NIV

This is so easy to forget.  We pray intensely when we need God but quickly lose that urgency when the pressure lifts. It's easy to pray and seek God when you're desperate, and just as easy to forget Him when our needs are met.  That’s different; we pray for God to come through but can forget to thank Him for the thing He just came through for us on, after that pressure is gone…we need to be as passionate for God in the good times as we are in the bad, and we are blessed and comfortable. Why?  Because the blessings are a gift, and they should never be more important than the One giving them to us. 

Third, we need to make sure we give God the credit and don't take it for ourselves!

Vs 17-18 If you start thinking to yourselves, “I did all this. And all by myself. I’m rich. It’s all mine!”—well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors—as it is today. MSG

When we are successful, and things are working out the way we want, it can be easy to look at it all and think, look at what we have done, but it’s all from God; everything is his, from the air we breathe to the possessions we have, and when we remember that, we view things in a whole new way.  It’s all from Him.  We will talk a lot about humility in the coming weeks, and this is something humility says: “I don’t take credit for what God has done.”  When things are going well, pride can definitely sneak in.

The fourth thing Moses says is that we must keep obeying God’s commands.  Moses begins this chapter with obedience and ends with a warning about what happens when we don’t obey God.

Vs 1 Be careful to obey all the commands I am giving you today. Then you will live and multiply, and you will enter and occupy the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors… 20 Just as the Lord has destroyed other nations in your path, you also will be destroyed if you refuse to obey the Lord your God. NLT

Because forgetting God isn't just something that happens in your mind. It shows up in how you live your life, in your choices, and your priorities. It starts gradually: you stop spending time with God. You stop serving, giving, and caring about people who are far from God. You just stop pursuing God and obeying Him.  And eventually, the God who once occupied the center of your life becomes an afterthought, probably only coming to mind when painful and scary things hit your life. That's how it works. It is usually not dramatic; it’s just one little thing after another. A busy day turns into a busy week, turns into a busy life… distractions set in, giving us plenty of reasons why we don’t have time for God. Until one day we look around and can’t believe we are this far from God.  And Moses says: Remember. So, let’s go back to where we started and revisit those questions I asked you earlier. When was the last time you really thought about all that God has done for you?  I mean, like, really stopped and thought about your salvation and all the things God has provided for you and brought you through?  Do you remember?  The key to keeping that passion, joy, and gratefulness in your life is to never forget what God has done for you. The fastest way to burn out, feel frustrated and restless, and have an exhausting or empty faith life is to forget God, and the easiest way to do that is to get caught up in all the comfort and extras we find in life.  We must never forget that all of it comes from Him.  Everything we have, and everything we are, all we do and accomplish is His; it all comes from God.  And if you find yourself struggling with your faith life, if it feels flat or empty…think back, remember where you were and what all God has done in your life; don’t forget God!  The key to passion and life, to joy and peace, to staying the course and not falling flat in your faith is to remember…to never forget all God has done for you.