Success comes from God

I know someone who started his Christian life all guns blazing for the Lord. He graduated with a first and became an expert in his field. He got several different jobs and moved cities. But with each move, and each promotion, it seemed like his interest in God became less and less. I can’t claim to know what was going on in his heart, but it seems to me that, slowly, over time he forgot God, as money and success caused him to rely more and more on himself. And that’s the challenge of these verses from Deuteronomy 8.

As we’ve seen in previous weeks, in Deuteronomy God’s people are finally on the brink of the Promised Land. They were about to move from the barren wilderness, to a rich and fertile paradise. And last week, we saw how the time in the wilderness was teaching the people that they needed to depend on God for everything. But now, the people were moving into an environment of instant plenty and that would be at least as spiritually testing as before. And, these verses show us why, and importantly, what the antidotes to it are. So, we need God’s help. Let’s pray:

Lord, we pray that today we would remember that every gift we have comes from you (and not from us). For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

1. Praise God for all he’s given you – and ever will (Deuteronomy 8.7-10)

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

So, put yourself in the shoes of an Israelite back then - your recent history was captivity in Egypt, followed by wandering round in the wilderness for forty years, depending on God to provide everything for you each and every day. So, you’d be absolutely blown away by this description of what is to come! A good land. A land of instant plenty. Of abundance. And it’s right there. And what does God say? He says enjoy it! Deuteronomy 8.10:

you shall eat and be full and [then] you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

So, the flow of thought here is; when God has brought you into the good land enjoy it, literally eat until your satisfied, but then praise God because he’s given it to you. After all, it’s all a gift from him! And Moses is keen to stress this, because he knows that the people could get so caught up in the enjoyment of the land, that they fail to thank and praise God for it. So, he’s saying, “once you’ve enjoyed the gift make sure you’ve thanked the giver. That’s what he deserves. And if you don’t stop and thank him, you run the risk that you’ll forget that he’s provided you with everything”. And, if you’re like anything like me, that’s quite a challenge because, it’s easy to stop at the enjoying the gifts bit, and never thank and praise God for the provision of them. Which is why, for example, thanking God for the food he’s provided each mealtime is an important habit because otherwise, perhaps, we run the risk of taking what God has provided for us for granted.

So, a friend of mine looks set to receive a substantial pay rise for doing the same job they’ve been doing for a while, as their employer increases wages across the board. And they’ve modelled the attitude of Deuteronomy 8.10 to me, by saying, “I’m thankful to God for his provision in this”. Because, the truth is that it’s God who has given that gift – it’s not ultimately down to that friend, or even their employer. Because God us the ultimate giver. And with this potential future gift, it’s God who deserves the thanks and praise. I’m not as good at doing it as I should, but I find helpful, last thing at night, to thank God for his good gifts throughout the day. And you soon realise, just how much God has given you. He gives us our daily bread, each and every day. And the majority of us don’t know what it’s like to not to have that prayer of provision answered.

And, I know that it’s not all of us, but I think that most of us live a life just like Deuteronomy 8.7-10; A life of comfort. A life of plenty. Where most of our daily needs, and more, are met. We have clean drinking water on tap. We can go to shops full of all sorts of things, with most of them also available to us at the click of a mouse. We’ve got amazing infrastructure, like the road you drove here on, or the metro/bus that gets you to work. We have houses we can call our own, or secure property we can live in long term. And God is the giver behind all of that. And more. Let’s be sure that we praise him for it. So that’s one antidote to the spiritual danger of plenty: praise God for all he has given you – and ever will.

2. God is the source of your wealth and success – not you (Deuteronmy 8.11-18)

Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’ You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.

So, Moses is warning the people that the danger is that they enter the land, they begin to enjoy it, and their wealth, and comfort, and standard of living rises. But, slowly but surely, their hearts are lifted up (Deuteronomy 8.14). In other words, they become proud. They self-congratulate for all they have achieved. They feel self-sufficient. And (Deuteronomy 8.17) they begin to look at themselves, and think, “yes, I’ve made it! Well done me! My flocks are huge. When I came to this land, I’d no sheep, and now I’ve hundreds. And my house, well I built it from scratch, and it’s gleaming. My power, my might, my success, my skill has made me who I am today. Go me!” And (Deuteronomy 8.14) God is forgotten. Doesn’t this resonate with us? Isn’t there a danger that the more we contribute to our wealth and success, by e.g. working hard, the more we forget that all the ability, and opportunity, behind it comes from God? And when we do succeed, we get no further than patting ourselves on the back. God certainly doesn’t get much of the credit.

I heard a story a while back of a Christian who met some friends he knew at University 30 years later. At the time, these friends had been committed and growing Christians. After uni they made a huge amount of money in the city, and then moved out to the country. But now, as he put it, the fire had gone out. What was once a growing faith, committed to serving others, had become swallowed up by wealth and success and the ‘vision’ of a happy and relaxed retirement. I have the privilege of serving many students. And when they graduate and get a job, like the Israelites they’re suddenly on the brink of a life of relative plenty. (Though I’m not sure I could quite compare their student digs to the wilderness, though on the other hand). And the danger is that, suddenly, with a new income, in a new place God, and all he’s done and provided previously, just seems less important than the career ladder, and the road to plenty that lies ahead. And it’s the same with other stages of life too: When we pay off the mortgage, or get that promotion, or retire. Or get married and two people who’d previously kept a godly cap on their standard of living let it slide up, and up. As one writer comments:

One of the single, biggest things that causes couples to let their standard of living expectations go up is the wedding gift list.

All throughout life in so many situations we attribute our success and gains to ourselves. We receive a good education. And we tell ourselves, “I worked so hard for these results, I made so many sacrifices”. We reach the top of the tree at work; “I worked hard for that promotion. Now I’ve got some recognition”. But who gave you the genes to be bright? Who gave you the gifts and the skills to be good at what you do? Who gave you the start you had in life – your parents, and home, that gave you the context to do well in school? Who gives you the ‘breaks’ of, seemingly, being in the right place at the right time? Or having children. Is that a ‘right’? Is it ‘luck’ that some people can have children, compared to others, who very sadly can’t? Where do children ultimately come from? God is the giver of everything, not you. But we so easily forget that. And that’s why Moses gives us two further antidotes to help us remember.

And the first one of these is to keep God’s commandments. We see that in Deuteronomy 8.11. Moses knows that if the people are doing their level best to follow God’s commands, that will put God will be where he should be: right at the top, as number one. And anything else (work, money, success or plenty) will come behind that. If we seek to obey God’s word, he’ll be right where he ought to be – the rightful ruler of our lives. He won’t be forgotten. And he won’t be over-shadowed. He’ll be doing what he should do – rule.

And the second antidote to a proud heart is to remember your history. That’s Deuteronomy 8.14-16, where once again we see a re-telling of the Exodus story: God saved his people, he protected and guided them through the wilderness, and he provided all that they needed along the way. And the drama is ramped up here. Moses reminds the people of the dry ground, and the dangerous animals because he’s underlining again just what God did for them, and just how good and dependable God is. If they forget where they came from, the danger was that they’d soon forget God. And we too, need to look back at our experiences and how God has provided for us in the past, so that we too can remember that all that we have today comes from him – and not us. Thirdly – and finally:

3. The cost of forgetting God (Deuteronomy 8.19-20)

And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

And sadly, the story of the rest of the Old Testament is that they didn’t obey God. They literally did forget him. They went after other gods, and eventually they perished from the land. And that demonstrates that we need a much deeper salvation if we are to love and obey God as we’ve been reading about today. We need Jesus. Jesus was a greater salvation – bigger than the exodus. The once and for all salvation for all our sins. For all our disobedience. For all our forgetting of God. For all our self-dependency.
And when we trust in him we’re saying, “I won’t forget you God. I trust you with my sin. I know I’ve been forgiven and I will serve you as my King”. And if we do that, God in turn won’t forget us. One day he’ll bring us to himself and to a land even better than this Promised Land we read about here. And in the meantime, he’ll give us all that we really need along the way. So, let’s not forget that. Let’s not forget where every good gift we have comes from. And, above all, let’s not forget him. Let’s pray:

Lord, we are so prone to forget all that you have given us. We’re so prone to give ourselves the credit, to rely on ourselves, to trust ourselves more than you. But you are the great giver. You provide all that we need. And truly, in this country – and this church – we know what it is to say, you provide far more than we really need. So, we pray that you would change us now so that we give you the thanks and the praise for all you’ve given us – and all you ever will. And above all, we thank you that you gave us your son, the Lord Jesus, who broke the endless spiral of sin by providing a new life, and a new hope for all who trust in him. And we ask that we would see that he is the greatest gift of all. And in his name we pray. Amen.