Remember Where You’ve Been

This week begins our summer-long study of the Book of Deuteronomy called Choose Life.

Deuteronomy was written by Moses at the end of the wilderness journey and on the eve of the conquest of Canaan, the Promised Land, which is precisely forty years after the exodus from Egypt. 

But before Moses tells the Israelites what to do, he tells them what God has already done. That order matters.  I’m going to show you why that matters in a few minutes.

Deuteronomy is a part of the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses (Gen, Ex, Lev, Num, Deut). These five books tell the story of the Israelites and their relationship with God.

In this last book of the Pentateuch, Moses restates God’s covenant with Israel, but Moses expands his explanation for a new generation.

An entire generation had passed since they left Egypt, and many, if not most, of the people who now make up Israel were not around at the beginning of the wilderness journey.  Moses is addressing a large crowd that may not remember some of the events he recounts at the beginning of this book.

Now, they are preparing to cross the Jordan River and begin the conquest of the land God had promised them. Before the conquest begins, Moses addresses the people. Moses is 120 years old and the Book of Deuteronomy is his farewell speech.  God has told him he will not be entering the Promised Land and that Joshua is going to take on the mantle of leadership in Moses place as the people move forward.  

The key verse in Deuteronomy is Deut 30:19. This section encapsulates much of the simple message God wants His people to understand.  To really appreciate verse 19, though, you have to read the context.

Deut 30:15-20 (CSB)—See, today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and adversity.  For I am commanding you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, statutes, and ordinances, so that you may live and multiply, and the LORD your God may bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not listen and you are led astray to bow in worship to other gods and serve them, I tell you today that you will certainly perish and will not prolong your days in the land you are entering to possess across the Jordan. I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, love the LORD your God, obey him, and remain faithful to him. For he is your life, and he will prolong your days as you live in the land the LORD swore to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” 

God says, “I want you to prosper. I want the good life for you.”  How does that happen?  When you obey God and keep His commands.  In the verses leading up to this section, God says, “I know you can do this.  It’s not rocket science.”

Now, He says, “I’m leaving you with a choice.  What will you choose, life or death?”

Moses says, choose life!  This is the destination God is leading the Israelites to in Deuteronomy.  He wants them to prosper, but he allows them to make their choice. 

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That theme plays out in our lives daily.  What will we choose? Will it be life or will it be death? 

If you have placed your faith in Jesus and believed that He is God’s only Son and that He died on the cross but rose three days later from the dead, if you believe that, then the question of whether you will spend eternity in God’s presence or eternity in Hell has already been settled once and for all.  In that sense, you have chosen life, and nothing will alter that decision.  

However, each day we still choose life or death. We either choose to live our life according to God’s plan and design and find life or we try and do it the hard way, our own way, and find death. We think we can ignore God’s commands and still get a good result.  It just doesn’t work that way.

Remember, God created you and designed you. Trusting Him with your life does just mean trusting Him for what happens when we die.  It means trusting that He knows what is best for you.  Trusting Him means making daily decisions that align with His ways, because ultimately His ways are the best. 

That is why this study in Deuteronomy will be good for us to do.  Not only will you have a better picture of God’s dealings with Israel and a better understanding of God’s character, but it will also challenge your thinking about how you live your daily life and the choices you make.

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Let’s go back to the beginning.  Israel has been wandering the desert for 40 years, but now it is on the precipice of entering the Promised Land.

Deut 1:1-2 (CSB)—These are the words Moses spoke to all Israel across the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di-zahab. 2 It is an eleven-day journey from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea by way of Mount Seir.

Basically, Moses is pointing out that it is only an 11-day journey from Horeb, which is Mount Sinai, where the Israelites started out, to the place they were standing at that moment.  Even though it was an 11-day journey, it took Israel 40 years to get there.

I’m sure it was a bittersweet moment for Moses.  What was supposed to be an 11-day journey turned into 40 years because of Israel’s disobedience and refusal to initially enter the Promised Land.  Now, Moses is going to recount and retell God’s faithfulness over the past 40 years.

In order for Israel to find success and prosperity, they will need to trust God to conquer the Promised Land. So, Moses is reminding them of God’s past faithfulness to give them strength for future obedience. Before moving forward, God’s people must look back and see His hand in their story.

The title for today’s sermon is Remember Where You’ve Been.

Deut 1:3 (CSB)—In the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first of the month, Moses told the Israelites everything the LORD had commanded him to say to them.

Moses begins to recount their story, starting with Mt. Sinai, because that’s where everything was set in motion. God didn’t give Israel a map and say, “Good luck.” He said, in verse 6, 

Deut 1:6 (CSB)—The LORD our God spoke to us at Horeb: ‘You have stayed at this mountain long enough. Resume your journey and go …” 

Then God gives them specific directions on where and how to go. All of this was God’s timing. One step at a time. 

The same God who had given them the law at Sinai was also the one telling them when to move. His guidance didn’t stop after the epic moment on the mountain when God gave Moses the law, it continued into even the ordinary, daily logistics as Israel began to move.

Before they even reached the Promised Land, God had Moses set up Judges from each tribe of Israel to help him watch over the people and settle disputes.  Even in these little details, God is forming Israel and preparing them for what comes next.

What comes next is the most consequential failure of Israel’s history.  They arrive at the edge of the Promised Land.

Deut 1:21 (CSB)—See, the LORD your God has set the land before you. Go up and take possession of it as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, has told you. Do not be afraid or discouraged. 

Many of you know what happens next.  The leaders of the tribes of Israel suggest sending in spies to check out the land before they go in.  Moses said, “Sounds like a solid idea.”

Twelve spies went in. Ten came back and said we can’t. There are too many people to conquer, and some of the people are giants.  There is no way we can do this. And the people believed the ten. 

The result of their refusal to enter the land was that an entire generation was condemned to die in the wilderness because they refused to believe what God had already proved he could do.

Deut 1:29–31 (CSB)—“So I said to you: Don’t be terrified or afraid of them! The LORD your God who goes before you will fight for you, just as you saw him do for you in Egypt. And you saw in the wilderness how the LORD your God carried you as a man carries his son all along the way you traveled until you reached this place.

Like a child who can’t walk on his own is carried by his loving Father, God has carried you.

Deut 1:32 (CSB)—But in spite of this you did not trust the LORD your God,

Failure to believe God and trust Him is not an intellectual problem — it’s a memory problem. Israel had forgotten what they’d seen.  They had forgotten what they had experienced.

Has there ever been a time you’ve been gripped by fear about something — a medical diagnosis, financial problems, a relationship in freefall — and someone who loves you said, “Remember when God came through for you in that other situation?” And in that moment, the fear seemed a little less intense. 

That’s because faith isn’t manufactured by willpower. It’s fueled by our memory. The Israelites had watched God part the sea. They had eaten bread that appeared on the ground every morning. They had followed a pillar of fire through the dark. And they still said, ” We can’t do this.” 

The lesson is uncomfortable because it’s so recognizable: we do the same thing. We forget. And when we forget, we shrink back.

But here’s what I want you to understand about Israel’s story:

The Wilderness Wasn’t Wasted

Yes, Israel wandered for the next forty years, but those years weren’t simply punishment for Israel’s failure—they were formation. God was doing something in those forty years that couldn’t have been done any other way. The generation that failed at Kadesh needed to pass the baton to a generation that would not. 

Sometimes God is building something during difficult circumstances, something we can’t see in the middle of those circumstances, exactly what God is doing. The wilderness wasn’t wasted; it was the school where the next generation of faith was being trained.

Even though they continued to wander the desert, God continued to show His faithfulness to the people He had made a covenant with.

Deut 2:7 (CSB)—For the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this immense wilderness. The LORD your God has been with you these past forty years, and you have lacked nothing.

Think about this for a moment: Moses is summing up forty years of discipline with the words: You have lacked nothing. Not “you survived.” Not “it was hard, but you made it.” You lacked nothing. Despite their circumstances, God’s presence and His provision were never absent, even in this season of His discipline.

God’s Faithfulness Outlasted Israel’s Failure

Many of you look back on your past, and you have deep regrets, maybe even shame. You did things or things were done to you that you can’t bear to think about without an overwhelming sense of failure.

Can I say something to you? Those things are part of your story — and God doesn’t waste any of it. I know those times may be hard to think about but they are a part of who you are.  Yes, God can work in spite of those things, but what God really does is use those things in our lives to shape and form us.

The Apostle Paul was a hateful murderer, but God used him to be His most effective witness of all time.  What did Paul say about his own past? “I am the worst of sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15) — and yet he wrote half the New Testament.

If God’s faithfulness can outlast Israel’s failure and if God’s faithfulness can outlast Paul’s failure, then be assured that your failure is nothing God can’t handle.

Embrace your past as a part of your story.  Don’t be distracted by shame and regret.  Instead, look forward to how God is faithfully changing you and forming you into something new.

It would be easy to read the wilderness years as God pressing pause on Israel, as if he had to wait for an entire generation to die before he could move forward. But God was working in the formation of the next generation during those years. The failure at Kadesh didn’t derail God’s plan; it became part of how that plan unfolded. God is not a coach who scraps his program when his players fail. He is a Father who is always moving us forward, even through the consequences of failure.

But chapters 1 and 2 don’t end in failure. They end with Israel finally doing what God told them to do and discovering that he fulfilled every promise of victory.

God tells them He will give them the land of King Sihon, an Amorite king.  They follow God’s instructions to the letter, and what do you know, they defeat Sihon just like God said they would.

Victory Is Evidence for the Road Ahead

After Sihon comes Og, king of Bashan. God’s instruction to Moses is almost word-for-word the same as it was before Sihon: 

Deut 3:2 (CSB)—But the LORD said to me, ‘Do not fear him, for I have handed him over to you along with his whole army and his land. Do to him as you did to King Sihon of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon.

This repetition is intentional. Moses is building a cumulative case. God’s track record isn’t a one-time event—it’s a pattern. Sihon and then Og. Egypt and then the wilderness. Provision and then more provision. God is establishing that he can be trusted not because of a single amazing event, but because of consistent, unbroken faithfulness over decades.

Every provision in the wilderness. Every battle won. Every morning the manna appeared. The cumulative weight of evidence is meant to be overwhelming: God can be trusted.

Then Moses writes:

Deut 3:21–22 (CSB)—“I commanded Joshua at that time: Your own eyes have seen everything the LORD your God has done to these two kings. The LORD will do the same to all the kingdoms you are about to enter. Don’t be afraid of them, for the LORD your God fights for you. 

Moses turns to Joshua and says: You were there. You saw it. Let what you saw carry you into what you haven’t seen yet, into the next chapter of the story. 

The past is meant to be the fuel for future courage. Joshua’s confidence going into Canaan isn’t supposed to come from his own strength or strategy—it’s supposed to come from accumulated evidence of what God has already done.

There’s something interesting about Moses’s charge to Joshua.  Skip down to verse 28.

Deut 3:28 (CSB)—But commission Joshua and encourage and strengthen him, for he will cross over ahead of the people and enable them to inherit this land that you will see.

“Encourage and strengthen him,” Moses says to all the people on Joshua’s behalf. One person can’t always hold onto the memory of God’s faithfulness alone. Sometimes we’re in a season where our own faith is thin and we need the people around us to remind us of God’s faithfulness. 

That’s part of why we gather. The body of Christ is a community of shared memory.

The rearview mirror in your car isn’t there so you can drive backward. It’s there because what’s behind you informs you how to safely move forward. You glance back, you get your bearings, and then you keep going. That’s exactly what Moses is doing with Israel in these three chapters. He’s not asking them to live in the past. He’s asking them to learn from it — to let the story of what God has done become the ground on which they stand as they face what God is calling them to do next.

Pray:

Let’s take a few moments this morning to Remember Where You’ve Been.  Remember one specific thing God has done in your story, a specific moment, a time He provided for you, a time He rescued you, a turning point in your life, a time you received something you didn’t deserve.

Take some time this week to write it down. If you’re married, tell your spouse. If you have kids, tell them. The act of naming and speaking about what God has done is a way to lay a foundation for the kind of faith that says yes to God.

The same God who carried Israel through the wilderness as a father carries his son is the same God who carries us. As we remember God’s faithfulness to us, let’s remember his greatest act of faithfulness, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  The memory of an empty tomb that declares Jesus’ gift is all that we need to defeat sin and death, and it is the fuel for the courage we need to say yes to whatever he asks next.