"Remember, Observe, Transmit" based on Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9

The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost - August 30, 2009

Pastor Troy Slater - Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Herington, Kansas

REMEMBER

One of the most amazing aspects of God’s creation, at least in my opinion, has got to be the ability of the human mind to remember. The ability to either consciously or subconsciously recollect data from the past and to connect it to our present lives is of course vital to about anything we do. Without that ability I doubt we could ever get anything done – actually I doubt we would even survive very long if we suddenly lost that ability to remember. For our memory helps us stay out of trouble as it remembers dangers and past experiences; it helps us to improve our lives as it enables us to build upon past experiences and knowledge. Our memory helps us maintain those basic social and family connections that are so vital to life.

In our reading this morning from the book of Deuteronomy, we hear the prophet Moses speaking to God’s Old Testament people Israel and we hear him telling the people to use that God-given ability to remember. Moses is proclaiming to the people how the Lord in His grace rescued them from slavery in Egypt having brought them through the waters of the Red Sea; He’s recounting how the Lord led them through the wilderness, providing for them even though they were often stubborn and ungrateful; He’s telling them how God in His faithfulness has brought them to the brink of the Promised Land and will soon grant them that land flowing with milk and honey; and he’s telling them that as they enter that land, they are to remember the words he’s speaking to them, they are to remember God’s words to them and what they have seen God do for them. Remember, for it is vital to their life. In fact if they fail to remember, they will perish from the promised land that the Lord God is about to give them. And so “remember”, Moses says. Remember what God has said - remember what God has done. …

Now, in telling them to remember you might notice that he doesn’t use the actual verb “remember”, but that word is certainly behind the verbs that he does use. For he says, “Hear now the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. … Follow them… Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God … Observe them carefully … and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live.” "Remember."

OBSERVE

But obviously Moses is calling the people to more than just a cognitive, "Yeah we know what God said", kind of remembering. Rather with these words that Moses uses, he indicates there is to be an acting on those words and those mighty acts of the Lord. In other words, their life is to reflect the words and actions of their God. And so “follow … keep … observe … be careful and watch yourselves closely,” he says. Remembering God’s Word is of course good, right and salutary, but without living that word, the remembering is of no use. It's like James says in his epistle, “Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what is says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” In other words, even if you have God’s Word, if you don’t do anything with it – that is, you treat it like you would a book of fiction – makes nice reading occasionally but you don’t let it shape your life, what good is it? And so “do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” "Follow… keep… observe … be careful and watch yourselves closely." Let your life be conformed to God and His word that is proclaimed. Remember His words and you will have life in the Promised Land. …

Now if you are at all familiar with the history of God’s Old Testament people, you probably know that this little remembering and doing thing, well, they had some problems with that even after they had entered the Promised Land. Actually much of the Old Testament is somewhat of a broken record when it comes to how Israel would stray from the Lord and His word to them. Of course the Lord in His mercy and grace would then graciously bring at least a remnant of His people to repentance and He would forgive them and restore them to Himself. Again, this pattern happened repeatedly in the Old Testament.

In fact I read the other day that some have estimated that in the Old Testament days, 90% of the time 90% of Israel worshippped the false gods of their neighbors - the "Baals" as they were called. God had told them at Mt. Sinai to worship Him and to worship Him alone - they were to have "no other gods". But they forgot these words of the one true God. Through Moses the Lord God had told them to love Him above all things and to love their neighbors as themselves but yet the people of Israel could be just as cruel and unloving and greedy and godless as any other nation. In effect they "forgot" what the Lord God had said. They put His words up on a shelf and said "We'll get back to you when we need you." And as a result, they suffered the wrath of God. They got stepped on again and again by the nations around them. Instead of becoming the light to the world, they became the laughingstock of the world. All because they forgot the words of their God.

But you know, it's really kind of hard to be too critical of God's Old Testament people. For His New Testament people don't seem to do much better. After all, how easily is it that we forget? For like with Old Testament Israel, we have been made to be God's people solely by His grace. We have been brought out of slavery to sin and Satan, rescued from our enemies through the waters of Holy Baptism. But yet so easily we fail to live as God's rescued people. For example, we've heard our Lord's word to us where He says, "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. … But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well." But what do we so easily do? We run after the 'stuff' of the world and put God's kingdom on the back burner of our lives. We forget.

The risen Lord invites us, "cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you." But what do we do? We worrry and fret over our problems as if our God is not big enough to handle them. We forget.

The Lord says, "do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves." But what do we do? We live as if the world revolves around us and our own little ideas of happiness. We forget. We forget our Lord's words, we forget His mighty acts on our behalf and as a result we worry and fret and we bring shame upon His name which He has put upon us. We forget. …

But God doesn't forget, does He? He doesn't forget about us, lost and condemned creatures though we be. God doesn't forget, instead He remembers. He remembers His promises. "though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." "I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." Though we all forget our God's words and actions, He remembers His promises, He has remembered to send His Son to go to Calvary's cross. Though we forget, God remembers and He has acted on that remembrance by becoming our Savior; He has rescued us from our sin; He is leading us through this wilderness; He has opened death's door; He is taking us to the promised land.

Of course we all know that, right? We've heard it all before. So why do we say it again here this morning? Well, because we forget, don't we? We forget that we are saved solely by God's grace in Jesus. Our fallen pride doesn't like to admit it; the world tries to teach us otherwise. I just caught a bit of the funeral service for Senator Kennedy yesterday but happened to tune in during the middle of the sermon. It about made me sick thinking millions of people were listening to that junk. I don't think I've ever heard such flat out "works-righteous" preaching as what that priest was doing. None of us are going to be saved by our works anymore than Ted Kennedy had no chance of being saved by his. You see the truth is that the world, our sinful nature, the devil, they like to point us to anything else but God's Word. And so, unless we hear it again and again and again, we falter, we fail, we forget when it comes to God's Word to us; we forget when it comes to His will and His ways. We need to hear over and over of the grace of God in Jesus; we need to humbly confess our sin and hear God's precious Word of forgiveness upon us again and again. By God's Spirit - with His strength and grace - we must remain in God's Word and in God's word alone for us; read, mark, learn, inwardly digest it. As a part of the universal church, as a congregation of God's saints, as families, individuals, there is nothing more important that we can do than to be in God's Word. It's where our life is; it's where Jesus our one and only Savior is.

TRANSMIT

But it can’t stop there, can it? That is, God's Word cannot stop just with us. For as I’ve noted on occasion, it’s often said that it only takes one generation for the Word of God to be lost among a people. It only takes one generation for the church to sink into being nothing but a social organization void of God’s pure Word and holy Sacraments. And so it is that we must learn to “transmit” that Word of God that we have been blessed with. We must strive to be God's instruments in passing on the faith to those who come after us – teach the Word of God and the acts of God to our children and grandchildren.

I imagine all of us have something that has been passed down to us by our parents or maybe by our grandparents. Perhaps it’s something as large as a piece of furniture or maybe it’s something as small as a ring. Or, maybe it’s something like a recipe that has been handed down through the generations. And I imagine all of us – at least the older ones among us – have some things that we want to pass down to our children, to our grand children, maybe to our nieces or nephews. Things enjoyed and held precious by us that we want someday to be enjoyed and to be held precious by them.

Well this morning Moses encourages us not only to remember God's Word, not only to live that Word and go back to it again and again, but also to pass down the most precious and most important thing that there is. The Word of God – those things that we have heard, those things that we have seen the Lord God do in our lives. “watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.”

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ. We have heard and may God continue to let us hear of the mighty acts of God as He sent His only Son Jesus to Calvary’s cross to die for our sin and to rise again for our salvation. Through faith in our risen Lord we have been rescued from death and the grave; we have seen and tasted the salvation of our God as we have gathered together around His Holy table. We have been given God’s Holy Spirit by which He empowers us to live as His people. He has given us His words of holy absolution by which He forgives our failings and our forgetfulness when it comes to Him and His Words and promises. We have been given the truth of God’s Holy Word and all of His many blessings.

And today, with it being Rally Sunday, today we celebrate those opportunities not only to learn and grow in the faith ourselves, but also those opportunities we have to pass on that same faith to the children, to the grandchildren of our congregation and of our families. In Sunday School, in our mid-week class for our catechism students, in our homes around the dinner table, in the evening at their bedsides, traveling down the highways, we have countless opportunities to teach those who are coming up after us of the wonders of God's grace. We can share the mighty acts of our Lord who laid down His life for us - for you, for me, for our children, for our grandchildren and even their children after them.

Let us not forget. By God's grace, by His Spirit working in us and among us, let us teach our children the words of God, let us live the ways of God, let us proclaim and ever hold fast to the good news of Jesus crucified and risen. Amen.