"Remember" - Sermon for July 1, 2018
“Remember”
Pikeville UMC
July 1, 2018
Deuteronomy 8: 7-18 (NIV)
7 For the LORD your
God is bringing you into a good land—a land with streams and pools of water,
with springs flowing in the valleys and hills; 8 a land with wheat
and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; 9
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. 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. 15
He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless
land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard
rock. 16 He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your
ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might
go well with you. 17 You may say to yourself, "My power and the
strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me."
18 But
remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce
wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it
is today.
Introduction
Lake
Junaluska is home to a well-known conference and retreat center for United
Methodists. Located in the Blue Ridge
Mountains of North Carolina, it’s something of a cross between a college campus
and a summer camp. Lake Junaluska hosts
people from all over the world for a variety of continuing education events,
seminars and meetings. It is also the
site of one of the World Methodist Council Museum.
Twenty years
ago, I had the opportunity to visit the museum.
It isn’t a huge facility, but it has some interesting mementos from
early Methodism. There were letters from
all the early leaders of Methodism, a saddlebag from an early circuit-riding
preacher and, interestingly enough, a display case of items related to the
death John Wesley (who is generally known as the founder of Methodism).
In the
center of the case was a portrait from Wesley’s deathbed scene. As I stared at it for a moment, I was almost
pulled into the scene. I remembered what
I had learned about that occasion. I
felt like I was almost there.
In the
portrait, one sees the dying Wesley surrounded by friends. The date was March
2, 1791. It seemed to me to be a serene
sight. A biographer told of a man who
came to Wesley and said, “Sir, we are come to rejoice with you.” Wesley sang a portion of the Isaac Watts
hymn, "I’ll Praise My Maker While I Have Breath.” One of those present
said, “We knelt down and truly our hearts were filled with the Divine Presence;
the room seemed to be filled with God . . . .”
Finally, Wesley raised his hand and said, “The best of all, God is with
us!” Shortly thereafter, he died. As I stared into the portrait, I was reminded
of the verse from Psalm 116, “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of
his saints (Psalm 116:15).” It seemed to
me to be a beautiful way to leave this world.
The book of
Deuteronomy is -- in many ways -- the portrait of Moses departure. Since God had called him from that burning
bush so long ago he had led Israel. For
more than forty years he had endured the criticism and complaining of the
people and had his heart broken by their disobedience to God. They had wandered in the desert, because they
had refused to cross over into the Promised Land as God had instructed them to
do.
God had
assured the older generation -- the ones who had refused to trust Him initially
-- that they would never enter into the Promised Land. Even Moses, who had led the people for so
long, would not go into the land because of his own disobedience many years
earlier.
But now the
word of the Lord has come to the people, “Get up and go into the land that I
promised your ancestors so long ago.”
Moses, having been told that he cannot cross over the Jordan, climbs to
the top of Mt. Pisgah and looks over into the Promised Land. It surely must have been a bittersweet moment
for Moses. He can see the land that he
has dreamed of for so long, but he knows he’ll never set foot in it.
He also
knows that the moment of his departure from this life is near. And desiring his people to learn from the
previous generation’s mistakes he begins to instruct them in a series of three
speeches (some might call them sermons).
Moses is saying “goodbye” to his people.
The passage
of scripture which serves as our text this morning is found during Moses’
second speech. This speech deals with
what God expects of Israel. As I read
the text, I hear Moses saying three things to the children of Israel all of
which are applicable for us today:
remember the past, remember the promise and remember the Provider.
Remember the
past. Remember the promise. Remember the Provider.
Remember
the Past
Moses wanted
to make sure that the nation of Israel would remember the past. More
specifically, he wanted them to remember what God had done for them in the
past. God led them, protected them,
provided food and water for them. He met
with them in the tabernacle and provided the Ten Commandments and the remainder
of the Law to guide them.
On sixteen
occasions one finds the word, “remember” in Deuteronomy and each time it is
related to either Israel’s situation prior to God’s intervention in the Exodus
or what God had done since then.
Additionally, there are four other commands to “not forget” what God had
done. It is obvious Moses doesn’t want
the past to be forgotten.
It’s just as
important for us to remember what God has done for us in the past, both
individually and collectively. As I get
to know this new community, this new congregation, there have already been times
when I have gotten to hear stories of how God has worked in your lives, and
when you do that I get excited. I see
you become re-energized when you remember God’s goodness to you. Sometimes, we need to tell and retell the
story of God’s working in our lives so that we remember God’s presence in our
past.
Now, I
suspect that there are elements of our past that we would just as soon
forget. So, I think it needs to be said
that I’m not talking about dwelling on our past sins, the
past pains we have
experienced or the of the past. That can
be unhealthy.
Rather, what
I am referring to is a call to remember how God has been there for us guiding
our steps, providing healing for those times we have been hurt and cleansing
for those times when we have sinned. It’s
always important to remember what God has done for us and in us and that’s what
Moses calls the people to do when he tells them to “Remember the Past!”
Remember
the Promise
Not only is
Israel called to remember what God has done in the past, but also to remember
the promise. It’s a promise of a great
land, “a land flowing with milk and honey.” Moses’ speech reemphasizes just how
wonderful of a place this is. In
essence, what Moses is asking Israel to do is to remember its future. This tone is unmistakably set in verse 10
where we read, “WHEN you have eaten and are satisfied.” There is no “if” or doubt in the mind of the
author. There is only an assured “when.”
In college
basketball, the team that wins the national championship gets to cut down the
nets. The late North Carolina State college
basketball coach Jim Valvano used to dedicate one practice each season for his
team to practice cutting down the nets in anticipation of winning an NCAA
Basketball championship. He had a pair
of golden scissors ready and the team would lift each member up to cut a piece
of the net. The final piece of the net
was cut by Valvano himself.
A member of
that team, Thurl Bailey would later say, “…the first time was awkward, and
probably the second time, but when you practice something often then you start
to get into it.” Valvano painted a
picture of what the celebration was going to look like when North Carolina
State won a national champisonship… and, in 1983, they did. It wasn’t “if,” it was “when.”
Moses’ words
were meant to prepare the people of God for what would happen. He is saying to them, “It’s not “if,” it’s
“when.”
We don’t
really know each other yet. In truth, it
takes time to build relationships – and there really isn’t a shortcut for it –
so I do not know all that you are facing at this moment. I don’t know the spiritual struggles you are
having, the difficulties in your relationships, the financial hardships you may
be facing. I don’t know all of
that. I do know one thing though… God is
trustworthy. He will never leave us. Life – as you well know – is not always easy
or fair. We will experience
hardship. Yet, wherever we go… whatever
we may experience God will be with us in our future. We must remember that promise.
Remember
the Provider
While Moses
has recalled the past and spoken of the future, we need to understand that the
focus of this passage is not on temporal events, but on the One who is in
control of them. As Moses is giving the
instructions on how the people are to conduct themselves when they come into
the land, we can almost see the divine fingerprints of God all over this
wondrous event and the people are to remember that.
Moses
recounts the exodus out of Egypt and how God has provided for the people of
Israel. God is the Provider, and Moses
wants the nation to remember it.
We, too,
must remember that God is the source of all our blessings. In many of our churches we do that each
Sunday, we do that as we present our gifts to the Lord and sing the words of
the Doxology, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” Unlike the people of Moses’ time, we do not
bring one-tenth of our agricultural produce, but rather our financial
gifts. Sometimes, we are inclined to
think that the financial offering is all we give, but a more complete
understanding of Christian stewardship is an awareness that we are to offer not
only our financial gifts, but all that we are --our time, our talents, our health,
our hopes, our dreams, our aspirations . . . everything -- to God. Thus, the choir, the greeters, the ushers are
also giving to God. Hopefully, we are
all giving back to God in the way we live our lives. We give back to our Provider in gratitude for
all that we have been provided and that is part of our worship of God. We remember our Provider.
Putting
It Together
These three
principles: remembering the past,
remembering the promise and remembering the Provider can help center us in our
journey of discipleship. This is
especially true if we celebrate these principles at the Lord’s table.
You see, at
the Table of our Lord we remember the
past (“On the night in which he was betrayed our Lord Jesus took the bread…”), we remember the promise of the future
(when we claim the promise of that great day “when Christ comes in final
victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet.”) and we remember the promise of the Provider who teaches us, “Christ has
died; Christ has risen; Christ will come again” and “makes us one with Christ, one with each
other, and one in ministry to all the world.”
May we recommit ourselves to ministry – our telling of the story – by
remembering the past, the promise of the future, and the one who is our
Provider. In the name of the Father, the
Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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