Remember, Do Not Forget

So this week, we're going to be continuing in Deuteronomy chapter 9, but we're going to just be doing one verse. And I talked to Eric earlier this week. I was trying to figure out whether to preach on one verse or like 25. And I decided I would preach on just this one verse. And one of the reasons is because the next 15 or so verses are a retelling of their... making of the golden calf at Mount Sinai. And then there are three other examples given in shorthand of their unfaithfulness to the Lord. But this verse seven is sort of a foundation or a guiding principle through all of those examples. And so I've decided just to preach on verse seven, hoping to lay a foundation for when we come to these other passages in coming weeks.

We'll have a foundation or a grid or filter to process them through. 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, 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 listen carefully, and we'll have occasion to cover the themes again about a month from now. But as I said, we're just going to be... covering verse 7. It has a message in it that is not popular or common today, and it's a 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 for us.

And so as we unpack what this verse means and then lay the 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 failures. And in light of that, he would give us hope. This is my goal today. So would you please stand as you read the word of the Lord from Deuteronomy 9, verse 7. Remember, do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you left the land of Egypt until you arrived at this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. I always kind of smile when you guys say that after I read a passage like that, because I think, I hope they mean it. I hope we mean it. If someone were coming to you and trying to prepare you for difficulty or strenuousness, or hardship, what kind of things do they say to you? Generally, I think they come and they encourage you, right? If you could think of a coach coming to his team before they go out on the field, he's likely to say, guys, we've worked hard, we've prepared, we're ready, we're going to give it our all, we're going to leave everything on the field.

So that we have no regrets or something like that. And the team's going to be encouraged and inspired 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 field. But I wonder what we would consider of a coach who came to his team and said, you know, guys, you've really been stinking it up. And I think your 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've...

Quit five minutes before the game was over. I think you did this and you did that. And I want you to remember those failures. Can you imagine what the parents would say to a coach who have talked to their kids that way? It's just not how you talk to people. It's just not what you say. It's not acceptable. But when we come to this passage, what are we going to do with it? Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord. your God, to wrath in the wilderness. Remember it and do not forget it. It is so far from what we would expect to be told to remember concerning the Lord. If we're told to remember things concerning the Lord, what are we supposed to remember? His grace and his mercy and his patience 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 anybody say, do you remember how angry you made the Lord last time?

I mean, has it ever been said? Well, we're going to say it today. 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, verse 7. But in the verses that follow, he reminds them of four different occasions where they've provoked the Lord to wrath in the wilderness. The first is at Mount Horeb, which is also called Mount Sinai, which is the place where they came out of Egypt. they came to this mountain to worship. It's where they received the Ten Commandments. They camped there 40 days, 40 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 a golden calf? And so they give all their jewelry and stuff and all their gold and some of the stuff they'd gotten from Egypt. And while Moses is up communing with God and receiving the law, they're down there making an idol. They provoked God to wrath.

At one point, toward the end of Moses' time with the Lord, he tells him, these people down there, go down there for they're acting wickedly and committing idolatry. So Moses comes down, he takes the tablets of stone, right? They promised to obey God and he takes the thing they're supposed to obey and he takes it and he smashes it to 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 and then puts it in the water and, oh. 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 an account of it. After that, in short form, Moses reminds them of three other times. He says, at Tibera, where they grumbled and complained against the Lord for their adversity. And the Lord heard them. He heard their grumbling and their complaining, and his response was to strike them down, to send fire to consume them. And again, at Massa,

where they threatened Moses' life because they were thirsty. 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. And he goes to the Lord and he's like, these people are going to kill me. They're thirsty. Here they've provoked God. And then at Kibroth Hatava, where they were greedy concerning the quail. They wanted meat. They wanted meat. They wanted meat. We deserve meat. We need meat like back in Egypt. And so the scripture says that even while the meat was still between their teeth, Like just as they had taken a bite of it, their greed, they gathered it all up for themselves. The Lord again strikes them down. And these aren't the only examples that we could point to during their time in the wilderness as times when they provoked the Lord to anger. But these are the ones that Moses mentions and we'll be working our way through when we return back to this passage. So why does Moses exhort them in this way? Why does he tell them? If you think of...

These chapters of Deuteronomy, they sort of go back and forth. We've just come off of an encouragement to remember 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 warning. And these chapters of Deuteronomy sort of have this pendulum swinging. 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 sin. And this is because of our propensity to forget everything in 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 happen, we forget all the bad things we commit, but we remember the bad things that happened to us.

And so we remember the good that we do and the bad that was done to us. And 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. It's backwards. 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 to it. How quick are you to accept responsibility for failures? I mean, you who have kids, you know when they break something and then they just hide it somewhere where 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 never get called to account for what I just did. And then when you find the broken thing and you point it out to them, they're like,

And you ask the question that every parent, who did this? How'd this happen? Crickets, silence, high eyebrows, right? That's what happens in my house. And we say, come on, guys, what happened? Somebody here knows who did it. Just tell me what 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 say, I did that. 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 it. 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. Things 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 it. 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 really hard time taking responsibility for our sins and failures. It's just part of our fleshly, earthly nature. Our pride is what keeps us from accepting responsibility or taking the 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, 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. Do you see what that person did? Yes, the child says, yes, I broke the lamp. But do 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. And the first one doesn't make the second one any less offensive. It doesn't make the lamp any less 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. Why are you making such a big deal out of that? I haven't done that in a long time. We really don't like to sit.

in the knowledge of our sins. It's really a humbling thing. And so we squirm and sweat and cry and try to get out of it as quickly as possible. And it's not because we just want out of it in the moment. We just want completely out and away from it. We don't ever, we just want it in the rear view mirror and gone away. We'll distract ourselves. I think a lot of the use of the internet and social media and gaming and entertainment in general is really just to distract yourself from the reality of who you are or what you've done. You just distract and feed yourself, overwhelm your brain and your heart with a hundred other things that don't have anything to do with you, but it's a nice distraction. And we live our lives that way. It's harmful to us. It's a violation of this command here from the Lord to remember and not forget. We say, no, no, no, I will forget. I will drink until I forget. I will play until I forget.

I will work until I forget. What do you do to forget? That's a good question you should ask yourself. Lord, show me what I do to forget. I've mentioned a few things, drinking, 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 wheel, a 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 or a parent with their child want to bring up the past, it is like guaranteed jet fuel on a fire. If you remind somebody of something they did a long time ago, they get really angry. You get really angry when that happens.

it's really distasteful. And we really do 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 remember it. God forgave me of that. It's in the past. I'm gonna come to this a little more in the future, but I just, in our sermon, but I wanna say to you, don't use God's forgiveness as an excuse for forgetting what you have done in the past. If you use God's forgiveness as an excuse for what you've done in the past, what will happen is what you've done in the past will show back up in the present because you ignored the warnings. We'll come to that more in a little while. We really don't like having our past sins brought up, called to mind, being reminded. And I want to say to you, there's a way of doing it that is wrong and sinful and should be avoided. Okay?

There's a way that Satan will get into the situation, into your heart and into your mind and accuse you with things in the past. That's not what Moses is exhorting them to remember now. He's not saying that your past sins should be brought back to your mind so that you can be guilty for them again or so that you can go through the whole misery of them again. That's not what I'm talking about, not even a little bit. But they do have utility in our present life. And as we prepare for the 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? Or do you just live your life transactionally being like, I sin and then I ask for forgiveness and then it's over. And then a day or a week or a month later, I sin again and I ask for forgiveness and then it's over.

And then for years and years and years, you go on acting like there's no story to be told here, that there's no ever-present danger. Man, if our spouse or our pastor or elder bring that up to us and point that out to us, you know this isn't the first time we've had this conversation. We think that it's unchristian of them to point out our habits and our sins, but that's exactly what Moses is doing here. Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. Recall to your mind the last 40 years, and I'll mention a few to get you started, but remember what you've done. Who is Moses to speak to them that way? Here's something you have to know about your sins. In this world, what is that? You getting it? In this world, the worst thing about your past sins?

is that they have a corrupting and 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? Time out. Good job, guys. We appreciate you. Are we good, Lucas, Clay? No more, we hope? Okay. We're gonna remind you if it happens again. This is the second time. This is the third time. Someone make a procedure to prevent that from happening again. Okay, where were we? Yes, past sins shape us. Here's the thing about our sins. They affect us. They inform our appetites and our desires. And it's the thing we deny about them. We think, I can do this sin. I can give myself this thing and it won't have any lasting impact on me. That is not true.

it will have a lasting impact on you. It's almost as though we live thinking that the only thing that matters or is 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 light and in a new way. And say, in what way am I most likely to ruin my soul? You should all be able to answer that question. Because not every sin, not every temptation is equal in all men and all women. What are you most likely to do to destroy your soul? Or your marriage? Or your kids? What is it that you bring to the table that's the napalm you put there?

It would do us well to be able to say that's the thing and to not forget it. Because the more we give ourselves to it or the more we allow it in our lives to shape and impact us, the more it will change us. 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 for them. Whether that someone else is your spouse or your boss. Or your parents, or your kids, or your pastors and elders, or Titus' two women, if they come to you and say, I see a thing, it's not good, and you seem to be pretty consistent in it, don't get angry at them. In 1 Corinthians chapter 6, Paul gives this long list of sins that'll bar you the gates of heaven, keep you out of it. He says, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

And it's worth noting in this passage, he doesn't talk up anything about believing in Jesus. He talks about what they did with their lives and their time and their bodies. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor homosexuals nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Why does he give this long list? Is he just going on? talking about random sins that they might fall into in the future. No, don't be that dense. What he's doing is naming their sins. When he says the effeminate, there's like lights that go on and people say, he's talking about me. When he says a drunkard, they're like, he's talking about me. And when he says swindler, like, ah, it's me. He's naming all of their sins. And we know that because the next verse says, Such were some of you. Such were some of you. And so what is he doing? He's reminding them of their past sins before they knew Christ. He said, this is who you used to be. This is what you used to be. I'm going to remind you of it. 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 former sins? No.

Paul is naming the sins that God delivered some of the Corinthians out of. So in addition to some of them hearing this letter and saying, that used to be me, there's also some in that group that are saying, that's still you. Because such were some of you. So not all were delivered out of those sins. And Paul's saying so publicly is a call to repentance to turn away from them before they perish. It's a warning that if they continue in them, they will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do you think anyone in their church got mad at them for saying that? I can imagine. I actually thought about going through, not looking at you while I said what your sin was, but if I just could say, like the sins that we all know each other commits, but we don't like just say it out loud or wear a t-shirt with it on it. But if we just knew and said, hey, you know, you remember that?

You remember that, how that happened? You see, like, remember five years ago? Remember 10 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 tells us to remember and not to forget them. And so if we have those in our lives, if we're blessed to have people in our lives who do remember our sins, and love us anyhow, we shouldn't punish them who help us to obey this exhortation to remember. We instead ought to be grateful for their honesty and their love for us. That's the proper response. If they abuse that knowledge of our former sins and hold it over our heads, it doesn't make our former sins any less true. We can both be forgiven and remember.

our former sins. These things are not mutually exclusive. They're not opposed to each other. Have 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? It's a good thing for them to 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 it. and all of God's mercy to them in the midst of it. And all of the hellfire they avoided through repentance of it. They don't just remember their sins, but they remember all of the context and what was done about it. So is it appropriate to ask people who are forgiven, to command people who are forgiven of their sins, to remember their sins? I ask 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 bookmarks it, right? From the day that you left Egypt to now, you have been rebellious against the Lord. We touched on this a bit last week, saying it's a very strange thing that this rebellious, 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 a rebellious people. You're a rebellious people. You're a stiff-necked rebellious people. Is it appropriate to address God's people in those terms? I don't like it though. Were they always rebellious against the Lord in those 40 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 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 that grumbling and complaining and those sins altogether. But the danger to rebel against the Lord is ever present. So they were rebellious at times. Other times they were contrite and sorry for their sins. The real danger that we face is to live as though forgiveness precludes any mention or remembrance of our sins. It's shallow Christianity to think that forgiveness means you can't talk about it. It actually denigrates the power of forgiveness and the grace and mercy of God to say, well, we had this terrible sin, but we can't talk about it anymore because it's just too...

It's got too much life in it still. If it was forgiven, 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. Why? It's not because the sins aren't forgiven. It's not because they still need to be paid for. 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. We should remember our sins to humble us. We need to be humbled. We need to be kept humble. Uh-oh. Hard days. It's contagious today. All the parents whose kids are quiet, they're the good parents. Eric's left with his kids. My wife's left with his kids. The Lakes are doing great. The Bakers are doing great.

I'm just picking at the family that normally have kids that fuss a little bit during the service. Don't you like it? You know it. We all know it. 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. So why should we remember our sins? 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 all right, but some of you probably can, point to instances in your life where there was a fork in the road and you had a decision to make and you decided to trust God. Have you ever walked down the other path in your mind and considered the destruction that was there if God hadn't been merciful to you at that point? I have.

There is nothing but the pit of hell at the other end of that. And so it's good for me to remember 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 be reminded. Why else should we remember our sins? Well, we should remember our sins to help remind us of the Lord's mercy. That's some of what I just was talking about. If you are in Christ and if you love Jesus and you want to serve him, you have reason to thank God for his protection and his mercy in your life. Whether you ever remember a time when you were a rebel or not, I realize some of you don't have that experience. You didn't wander off like the prodigal son or you didn't grow up outside of the church. I mean to tell you, if you're in Christ and if you're here and if you love him, it's his kindness that's brought you here.

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 and cared for 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 going to 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, to like have the chill go down their neck of like, oh, that was, ooh, I don't ever want to do that again. We think the same thing's true with home renovations.

You tear into the wall. You think you're going to fix something. All of a sudden you realize there's a hundred more problems and it's a big deal. And while you're just like, note to self, don't ever let that happen again. And so in 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? That we would cultivate a remembrance of our past sins? Why is that so distasteful to us? What'd you say? Personal. It's embarrassing. Painful. Why are you opposed to it? I think we're opposed to it because we see it as sort of a, 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 sins. And I think that's harmful to us. How else do we learn?

who we are and what we're like if we don't remember, if we have a principle against not remembering. When it comes to our money, we're willing to remember our failures and never do it again. Set up safeguards and protections to never do it again, to teach other people never to do it again, to 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 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 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 anymore. And that is the surest way to guarantee you will stay in your sins.

It'd be like having your kid run out into the street. 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 brakes. And you send them down the driveway, and 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 car. And you go, oh, we're so glad that you didn't get hit by the car. Wasn't that gracious? And then just give them their bike and go back in the house and let them do it again. Like, you would all recognize that as neglect.

In parenting, there's so much more that needs to be said to that child and done for that child to prevent that danger. But isn't it curious that when it comes to our spiritual lives, we're like, no, it'll be fine. I'll be good. That won't really leave a mark or hurt me too bad. The danger's not that high. We should remember our sins so that we don't fall back into them. We should also remember our sins and the cost that's associated with them. Have you ever bought something expensive with cash? Thousands and thousands of dollars. A car, you know. Maybe you bought a car on Marketplace and you're like, hey, here's $15,000 because they're not going to take a personal check from you and give you a car. Like, you're going to have to Venmo me, but no, we're old Luddites who don't have Venmo. Cash. You ever gone 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 you?

You're just excited about the thing you're buying, right? It's so great, 15 grand, here you go. No, you're like, that's my money. That's my, it hurts, it's painful, right? What are you thinking about as you're handing the money over? You're thinking, is that thing really, how about 13? Because 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 I'm, Getting is worth it. You have 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 conscience? Are you just like, no, put it on my credit card. It's fine. We'll pay the balance when it comes due. 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 going to do that again. Thank you, James. You can 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. Have you ever committed sin or been doing something you didn't want anyone to know about and considered how much energy and effort you spend trying to keep other people from learning about it or know about it or be harmed by it? Because most of us, when we sin, we're not like, you know what, I hope this really hurts all the people I love. That was my goal. 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. And we have a choice. We can either not go after the sin or we can go after it but try to like shield them from it. How much energy does it take to shield somebody from the knowledge and impact of your choices? How good are you at shielding them from it? Do you know why, do you know what people say to pastors when they're on their deathbed? Many times, do you know what people say to them? They talk about their sins. And they just say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I did this. I'm sorry. Things they never told anybody. Things that never did get found out. They realize that they've been carrying them, hiding them, protecting their loved ones from these things. 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.

They're afraid that there's no mercy for them or forgiveness for them. And their sins and their hiding of their sins for years and decades have shaped them and their opinions about God. It all comes out right at the end of their life. I'm telling you that because I don't want that to be you or me. If you're going to remember your sins, And they 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 protect you from falling into it again, if you're going to remember your sins 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. You can't fix it.

Maybe you can make some amends or some reparations or restitution in some way. But before the throne of God, you can't do anything about the sins you've committed. And so it's good for you to remember that so that you flee to the cross. I was thinking about this point as Eric was reading the scripture lesson and he was contrasting Judas and Simon Peter. And Jesus comes to Peter three times and says, do you love me? Do you love me? Why is he asking Peter, do you love me? Just because it's a nice poetic way to say, tend my sheep, feed my sheep. 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 thinking? What's he thinking? He knows. He wasn't there, but he knows.

He knew before I did it and he told me I was going to do it. And now he's resurrected and he's reminding me of it. And it's just awful for Peter, like the anguish. But with that anguish, he's repentant. As opposed to Judas, who when he was in anguish over the ways he betrayed the Lord, he tried to throw the money back and they said, yeah, whatever. And then he went and killed himself. The whole point of remembering your sins is to behave and to come to the place that Peter came to, not the place that Judas came to. But you can't come to the place that Peter came to if you're unwilling to remember any of your past failures. You'll never get there. You won't remember. You won't think it was a big deal. 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 them 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 in the short term, your pain's 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 painkillers. All because we prefer to have our bodies healed superficially. We just want to not deal with the reality that we need a new hip or a new knee or a new whatever. Or we need to stop doing that thing that's causing the problem. The whole point of remembering your sins is so that you will be saved from them.

This is the path 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 them. He wasn't picking on them. He was saying graciously to them, do you remember who you were and what God saved you from? And to those who that was true of in there, I have no doubt that they praised God for his mercy and were strengthened to resist those temptations that were still present in them. That's the benefit of remembering your sins. It's not so that you wallow in them. It's so that you will be protected against them and against what they produce, which is death. And so it's difficult to live as a Christian in the tension between remembering our sins and that they are forgiven and that they're still tempting. That's why Paul exclaims 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 Jesus Christ. He is the one who will set you free from it and keep you protected from it. But he will do it by reminding you of your propensity to go right back to where you came from, right? 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 hand's all healed up. You don't have a burn anymore, but you have the memory. 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 dangerous. So learn 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 lesson about what not to do. Because that's what happens. It's his kindness. So take it to heart. This is why we need to remember our sins. Now, as we come back to this passage in 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 where your pitfalls are at and you ought to daily be warring against them so you don't fall into the pit.

Let's pray.