When we prosper we forget that God meets our needs. When we are safe we forget that God is our protector. That is why the Bible says to remember God and what He has done.

Remember Remember

Friday, January 13, 2011



It can come as a crushing pain that causes you to buckle over. Symptoms can range from sudden severe to dull chest pain, arm pain, even jaw and tooth pain. But instinctively, people having a heart attack know something is very very wrong.

Swell

No two heart attacks are the same. A cardiologist points out, "Men are much more likely to have the feeling of an elephant sitting on their chest," A heart attack in women is more likely to cause shortness of breath, fatigue, jaw pain, neck pain, and arm pain. A myocardial infraction occurs when blood stops flowing to a section of the heart, depriving the heart of oxygen and causing the heart muscle to die. It is the leading cause of death in North America. For everyone I know who has had a heart attack.

For anyone who survives a heart attack, there is that long pause to remember. Not just to remember why could have been done differently, but a pause to remember and think about what’s most important in life. Maybe it’s relationships that shouldn’t have been severed, maybe it’s stopping your fast-paced life long enough to love others and show more acts of kindness. Maybe, just maybe, it’s to change life patterns in a different direction. For a Christian who has had a heart attack, and for all of us, maybe we need to remember a special verse, like maybe



Deuteronomy 8:2 “Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.”

As I invite you to join me in reading the Bible in 90 Days welcome to HT, I’m CM sharing the GS that’s all about Jesus and a program called “Remember Remember”, part of a series called “Listen, Mine, Remember. HT opens with the music of a family, the Martins:

OPEN SONG – May We Never Forget – The Martins



The Martins and May We Never Forget here on a HT called Remember Remember. Are you tempted to join me in ready God’s Word cover to cover in less than 3 months? Have you tried and failed and you’re nervous about trying again. Let me share a little secret that I’ve found … it’s easier to read the Bible in 90 Days than it is in a year. I’m not talking about studying the Bible in 90 Days. I’m asking you to read the Bible at the 30-thousand foot level and then when you’ve reached that goal – getting the big picture – go back and you’ll be better prepared to study God’s Word. Go to haventoday.org after the program. That’s haventoday.org. Make a gift to the ministry and order a copy of the large-print NIV Bible I’m using. It tells you where to start and stop every 12 pages. If you want to use a different translation, go to our website and download a copy of the Bible reading plan. If you don’t have the Internet, you can call us, make your gift and ask for the Bible in 90 Days. We’ll also mail you a copy of the Bible reading plan if you just ask when you call 1-800-654-2836. That’s 1-800-65-HAVEN.

Remember. It’s something all of us do, but especially if the Lord allows us to make it through a heart attack. Two weekends ago in church, my wife and I were sitting next to a couple and we introduced ourselves after church. It turns out they were a couple I had heard and had wanted to meet and the Lord allowed that to happen. We just happened to sit next to them at a morning church service. I had a great conversation with the husband, while Janet visit with the wife. The very next day, Mark suffered a heart attack. In his case he was rushed to the hospital for surgery and he’s safely home. He’s going to make it. But he’s a lot of remember the past few days. Yesterday, I was working on this message and I got the news that a friend of mine in Colorado Springs who is the president of mission agency had arrived at work and keeled over with a massive coronary. They don’t know how long he was deprived of oxygen, but as I went into the studio, I learned that after a brain scan, there is little activity and with his family gathered around him, his chance of survival are less than 1 percent. And if he lives, his thinking skills are pretty much gone. While my new friend Mark gets to remember after his heart attack, my old friend Mike will probably be with Jesus in the next few hours. There are themes for us to remember and one of those themes that you find in the book of Deuteronomy is to remember. Remember Him. Don’t forget Him. For when you move on and life is going well, he says remember him.

That’s the theme. Before that there are a couple of other themes we’ve explored in this series. There’s God telling us to listen – listen to the Lord. There’s also this theme of ownership. In God telling us he loves us, he says, “you’re mine!” In Deuteronomy Moses and the Israelites have moved to the terriotory of Moab where the Lordan River flows into the Dead Sea. As his final act at this important time of transferring leadership to Joshua, Moses delivered his farewell addresses to prepare the people for their entrance into Canaan and the Promised land. In contrast to the matter-of-fact narratives of Leviticus and Numbs, here the words of Moses come to us from his heart as this servant of the Lord presses God’s claims on his people in Israel. The book of Deuteronomy is cast in the form of ancient Near Eastern covenant treaties. The love relationship of the Lord to his people, and that of the people to the Lord as their sovereign God, pervade the whole book. Deuteronomy’s spiritual emphasis and its call to total commitment to the Lord in worship and obedience inspires references to its message throughout the rest of Scripture. The story of redemption continues to unfold. There is the deliverance from slavery to the world power of Egypt to a place on the earth where Israel can be a free people under the rule of God. There is the deliverance from rootlessness to security and rest in the promised land. There is deliverance from a life of banishment from God’s garden – Eden – to a life in the Lord’s own land where he has pitches his tent. There is this long pause on the threshold of the promised land. Moses is not allowed to enter. Joshua will lead the people of God. There was this promise of rest that keeps coming up and that’s a promise all of us can look forward, even as we are told to remember. When we remember, we can look forward to the rest we need. Let’s share together part of one of these addresses. This is God’s Word, speaking through Moses in Deuteronomy 8. Listen for the word remember:

1 Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the LORD promised on oath to your ancestors. 2 Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 4 Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.
6 Observe the commands of the LORD your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him. 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; 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.
19 If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. 20 Like the nations the LORD destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD your God.

1. Prosperity leads to forgetting.

2. The Christian who remembers is the Christian with hope.

3. Remembering right. It was Jesus who said at the Last Supper, “remember me”. He said it context of remembering the Exodus of God’s people long before us, in God’s protection over us, in God’s working through us. We partake of the bread and the cup to lead us back – not to God’s people making it through a wilderness or on into the Promised Land of prosperity, we take the bread and the cup and remember Christ. His blood was spilled for us. That cross was suffered for us. The horror of horrors in losing his life was made to lead us to new life, out of darkness and into the light.

Luke 22

14 When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. 15 And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”

17 After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. 18 For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”

19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

20 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.



CLOSING SONG – Remember – Scott Riggan



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