The Danger of Having Plenty | Robby Gallaty | Deuteronomy 8

A lot of people, just a plug for our video I just put out, a lot of people ask me about the King James only. Is it the only Bible? Did it come from heaven? Did angels write it? You ever heard these things? If you've ever wanted fodder to explain why the King, and again, I love the King James, but I wanna show you the dangers of King James version only-ism, and it's like 40 minutes, this video, and I go through the history of how we got it and the discrepancies and the issues. So anyway, you can look that up on YouTube if you're interested. Today, I wanna talk about how we need to forget to not, or remember to not forget God. We need to remember not to forget God. Whenever we're coming up on something that is difficult in life, maybe a hard season, the tendency is for us to brace for that, right? We have to step out in faith and trust the Lord. Maybe we're facing a diagnosis. Maybe we know there's a layoff coming. Maybe we know there's a separation coming or a disconnect, or maybe a divorce coming, and we pray that God would carry us through the valley. But here's the newsflash. Nobody warns us of the challenges of the mountaintop. I want you to write this down.

It's gonna set the tone for our time together, and here's a truth of life. Most people don't lose their faith in the famine when it's gone. They lose their faith in the feast when they have it all. That's when they forget the Lord, right? Israel just survived 400 years as bricklayers, and they knew about the Lord. They went for 40 years in the wilderness, no food, no water, no map, and God was with them the whole time. And what nearly destroyed them wasn't the desert they wandered in. It would be the promised land they walk in. Here's another way to think of it. Pharaoh couldn't make them forget God, but prosperity could. And if we're not careful, well, this is a warning for us today. If we're not careful, we will forget the Lord as we focus on the blessings and forget the blesser. So if you have a Bible, turn with me to Deuteronomy 8. We're walking our way through Deuteronomy. How many people still reading through the F260 plan together, amen? Give you a newsflash. I might've said this before, but Deuteronomy is the summation of the first four books. So Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, that's kind of the wandering.

And then Deuteronomy is like God giving us kind of a summation of what just happened. Verse 11, we like to say a word at Long Hollow. Thank you. The word of the Lord. Be careful that you don't forget the Lord your God by failing to keep his commands, ordinances, and statutes that I'm giving you today. When you eat and are full and build beautiful homes to live in and your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and your gold multiply and everything else you have increases, be careful that your heart doesn't become proud and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery. God led you through the great and terrible wilderness with its poisonous snakes and scorpions, a thirsty land where there was no water. He brought water out of the flint rock for you. He fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your ancestors had not known in order to, here it is, why does he do all this? In order to humble and test you so that in the end he might cause you to prosper. The word of the Lord. I wanna give you three insights about how God uses suffering and pain to bring us to a place of dependence and trust in him. The first insight I wanna give you is this. We're gonna see right out the gate

the purpose of pain in our life. What is the purpose of pain? Some people would say I'd like to know because I'm in pain right now. Okay, God is actually preparing them for the promised land so that when they get into the land they don't forget him. Go back to verse two. I wanna show you how he begins this section. Moses says, remember that the Lord, verse two, your God, led you on the entire journey, these 40 years in the wilderness, so that he might humble you and test you. Now we already heard that, but watch this line. To know what was in your heart. God wanted to know through testing and difficulty. God already knows, by the way, he wants you to know. So he wants to test you, to humble you, to know what was in your heart that you would keep the commands of the Lord. Here's a line I want you to write down. God's process for determining trustworthiness is testing. That's how he works, that's how he operates. The barrenness of. The desert took away everything they could depend upon themselves. All their support was driven away, and it was God. God was teaching. It was like a reflex in their life. God was like, hey, I'm your source of strength. I'm your sustenance.

I'm your protection. God trained them for four decades to be dependent upon him. When they hungry, God gave them manna. When they were thirsty, God gave them a water fountain on the side of a mountain. When they were attacked, God protected them. When they had abundance, God said it's because of me. Now notice this. They didn't have a lot all the time, but what they had was enough. And here's the point I want you to get right now. Where God guides you, he provides. I like to say it this way. Where God guides, he provides. Write that down. Where God guides, he provides. Another way to say it is this. The will of God will never lead you to a place in life where the grace of God will not sustain you. Amen? God's not gonna lead you to a place. He's gonna leave you on your own. Now, it may not make it easy. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy or a bed of roses, but it will be God with you, and it's normally always simple. God's like, hey, follow me, and I'll take care of you. You know how I've learned this? I've learned this through my life of addiction years ago,

and I've had the privilege now for about 23 years of counseling probably 1,000, or I don't do it anymore as much, but I used to counsel a lot of people on addiction. And one of the things I've found is that anybody, and I'm talking about drug or alcohol in this case, but you could do any addiction, but whenever there's a perpetual addiction, let's say drugs and alcohol, you can always trace it back to the source, which is an enabler in a family's life. Normally, the enabler is a mom. In my case, it was a dad, which is fine, but here's what the enabler does. The enabler is someone who loves the family member. It's a spouse, it's a parent, it's a child. They love this person so much that they think they're actually helping them by paying their light bill twice a month and their cell phone bill three times a month. That was what mine was always due. Dad, I don't know how it's due again, but the phone bill's due again. Can I get me 100 bucks? And dad would think he was helping me. But here's the thing about an enabler. Unknowingly, if you're the enabler, and I don't say this to be critical, I just tell you the fact, the enabler thinks they're helping the addict,

but they're actually speeding up the inevitable result, which is always three Ns. These are the three Ns of an addiction. Jail, institution, or death. That's it. Jail, institution, or death. An enabler has good intentions. They want the best for their child, but they're doing more damage protecting them from hitting rock bottom. But here's the reality. You and I have to hit rock bottom to realize that Jesus is the rock at the bottom, amen? And that's what my mom did for me. When my mom cut me off, it was the best thing that happened to me. I've come up with this line I use. If you're an enabler, again, I'm not trying to criticize you. I just wanna give you the truth of the matter. If you keep being their savior, Jesus never can be. Why would they turn to God when they have mom? Why would they give their life to Christ when they have dad? And so what God is showing us here is this. God is showing us that suffering in life is actually something he uses for good. Did you ever think, come in close, that your present suffering was God's answer to your prayer request? What kind of convoluted answer is that, right?

What do you mean? Well, think about this. How many times have you prayed, God, I wanna be used by you? God, you come to these steps right here. God, I want you to use it. God, I want you to pour your grace on. God, I wanna be used for your glory. God, I wanna make your name known. God, I wanna be like you. And God decides to send his choice mechanism for spiritual, heart, and physical surgery, which is suffering, and the moment it comes, we're like, okay, any other option in heaven? Because I, we don't like this. That's what we do. And the moment God sends his instrument for change, pain, we wanna pray it away. Here's my challenge. Listen, nobody likes pain. I don't like pain, but here's the reality. Do not pray away pain until you've learned a lesson in the suffering. Because if you don't, you'll be like me. I don't know about you, but I have a relapse of just continuing the remedial class of suffering. I mean, you just keep retaking that class. Like, but I don't wanna talk about it. It's like, you go through it, God's like, he didn't learn it, let's do it again.

You know, anybody with it, you gotta learn it again. So you wanna learn in the moment. Number two, so the purpose of pain is for dependence. Number two, the provider of plenty in the text. Let me show you who the provider of plenty. God knows they're gonna take it for granted and he still blesses. It's kind of mind blowing to think about. Look at verse 17. For you may say to yourself, my power and my ability have gained this wealth for me. Now, you've never said that, but I've heard of people who, that's what we say, my power, my ability, I'm a self-made man, have got me here. But remember, it is the Lord your God who gives you the power to gain wealth in order to confirm his covenant he swore to your ancestors as it is today. Here's what God knows. God knows we have a tendency as human beings to redirect our affection from the giver of all things to the gifts of the giver. We forget God and we worship the things that he gave us. And here's how we do that. We start to believe that we're the ones who acquired it. I was smart enough. No, you don't understand, Robbie, I grinded. I worked harder than anybody, man. I'm a self-made man. Do you know, no, I earned this P.A.

You call me, that kind of mentality. And the moment you start saying that, you're in trouble. And here's what God is saying. Don't forget, don't have spiritual amnesia. You need to remember now when you have nothing who gives you everything when you have everything. And so God gives it, this is the strategy. I love this. It's gonna blow, prepare yourself. It's gonna blow your way. Guess what the strategy is for dependence upon God? One word, write it down, remember, remember. I want you to remember. And we should do this now. I want you to remember what I've done for you. I want you to remember how I worked in your life in the past. I want you to remember how I was the one who provided for you when no one else was there. I want you to remember that I came to you when no one else cared. That's what God's saying, remember, remember, remember. Now here's the difference between the Hebraic Jewish culture and the American Western culture in which we live. We live, this is how we live. I'm not saying this is bad, but this is how we live. We live with our backs to the past and our face and feet pointed to the future. This is how we live. So what we're always challenged to do is set goals

and aspirations and plans and quotas and strategies and projections. I'm not saying those things are bad, but that's how we do. So what we do is we forget the past and we're always looking to take the next hill, to climb the next mountain, okay? The Hebraic culture lived very differently. They actually lived with their backs proverbially, proverbially, a proverb, proverbially, whatever that word is, in their mind to the past. Well, I mean, they lived their backs to the future. Watch this. And they looked to the past in order to live confidently in the present. And I know what you're thinking. What in the world are you talking about? Here's how it works. They knew that when their hands were full, they tended to forget God. They knew that if they only look to tomorrow, they had a tendency to forget what God's done in the past. And we do the same, right? We tend to forget God when our fridges are stocked. We tend to forget God when our house is furnished. We tend to forget God when the car runs perfectly, where we don't have a clue, a care for God. When the check is coming in every week, when the relationships are great.

And that's why God, I think, sends trials in our life, allows suffering in our life to say, hey, don't forget, you forgot about me. Look at me. Why does God have to do that? Why does it have to take, some of you are like, man, I'm suffering right now. Why does God have to go to that extreme to get our attention? A person that knew this principle well, I believe, was Paul. And we don't talk about Paul like this, but I'm assuming Paul probably had a problem with pride. And he talks about this, 2 Corinthians 12. He said, to keep me from becoming conceited due to the surpassing revelations that was given to me, verse seven. Basically what he's saying is, I went to heaven and saw Jesus, and to keep me from becoming prideful, God gave me a what? A thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me, to keep me humble. Now, we don't know exactly what that was, but some scholars would say it's his eyesight. He had bad eyesight in Galatians. If you look at the end of your Bible in the book of Galatians, Paul says, see, I write the end of this letter with my own hands in large print. Some say, because he couldn't see. We don't know.

Some say it's the Judaizers outside the church who were trying to attack him. Some believe it was the leadership in the church, the demon deacons and the cranky choir member. I don't know. We don't have those, thank God, but I've heard of churches that do, right? We don't know what it was. It was probably physical, or probably more than a physical ailment, but we know for sure. wasn't less than a physical ailment. Now, this is a hot take, so lock in for a moment, but I found, this is crazy, archaeologists just uncovered a snapshot, like an image of Paul in the middle of his battle in the early church. It's crazy, they just found this thing. It's crazy, yeah. Almost looks like Rocky in Apollo, right? No, but here's the thing, I want you to get that in your mind, Paul was a man who bore the signs of suffering everywhere. He was a walking billboard for suffering. This is a man who was punched for his faith. He was whipped, he was stoned, he was starved, he was imprisoned by his enemy. In 2 Corinthians 11, he said, I was beaten three times with rods. I was whipped five times, 40 lashes minus one. I was shipwrecked a day and a night at sea.

I was left for dead. Not to mention the mental and emotional anguish from those in the church, from the Gentile world, the attacks of my own people, the attacks from robbers, the attacks from the Roman government, the attacks from the devil, and not to mention trying to launch a church planting movement that resembles more of the Jerry Springer show than the North American mission board. I mean, to say Paul was overwhelmed was an understatement. To say Paul was attacked was an understatement, but here's what Paul knew. Paul knew this, when he showed up, God showed off. Paul knew he was a man that when he prayed, the heart of God responded in his life. Paul knew that when he preached Christ, kings and queens were converted, wardens got right with God, households changed, sinners were baptized, and world leaders bent the knee to Jesus Christ. Come in close, here's what Paul knew. Paul willingly endured suffering and pain because he knew, write this down, the hardest seasons of life produced the greatest anointing on him. The hardest seasons of life. I didn't share this in the first, I wanted to, but I had a little time, so I'll tell you this story. Manly Beasley, as you know, is one of my mentors from a distance, I never got to meet him,

but I know his sons, he's a great revivalist if you're not familiar with Manly Beasley. He had a debilitating muscular illness, plagued him his whole life. Ron Dunn, I read a book, Ron Dunn said he went to see Manly Beasley and said goodbye to him no less than four times in the hospital. They thought it was it, four times. But God resurrected, brought him back. Toward the end of his life, he couldn't walk anymore and he couldn't move his hands, they would have to pick him up, put him in a chair to preach, and so one time they picked him up, they put him in a chair, but the people said when this man would open his mouth, no frills, no fluff, no overwhelming charisma, but when he preached, the power of God was felt in a palpable way. He told a story to his son and they related it to me. He said one time he was finishing preaching at an event, a lady came forward and she said, Pastor Manly, she said, I have the gift of healing. God has given me a gift to pray over you. I'd like to pray over you to be healed and to get out of that wheelchair. To which Manly Beasley said, no thank you. She said, what are you talking about? I'm gonna pray for you to get out of the wheelchair and walk again, and Manly Beasley said,

no, you don't understand. The longer I'm in this chair, the more powerful God is in my life. I don't wanna lose the anointing. Thanks, but no thanks. See, Paul knew that. I'm not saying we willingly go in and suffer, but what I'm saying is when you're suffering, Paul knew this, when you're weak, Christ is what? Strong in your life, be encouraged today. Because this leads us to the last point and it's the problem of prosperity. And I'm just gonna tell you before I get into this one, I'm not throwing stones at you because I preached myself and prepared myself into conviction this week. You ever done that before? Pastors, preaching myself into conviction this week. You know, it's like, wow, big boy, you listening to what you're saying? Okay, so here we go, I'm there with you. God really convicted me as well. Verse 19, if you ever forget the Lord, your God and follow other gods to serve them and bow and worship to them, I testify against you today that you will perish certainly. Like the nations the Lord is about to destroy before you, you will perish if you do not obey the Lord, your God. God is teaching them a principle I want us to get before we leave and that is the value of contentment. There's a difference between arrogance and dependence.

Here's the difference. Arrogance comes from an elevation of self. It's my power, it's my ability, it's my intellect, it's everything I've done. Contentment is on the opposite extreme. Contentment comes from this inward belief that God is protecting me. God is. supporting me separate, look at me, separate and apart from any external circumstances or situations in life. The only reason, and I want you to get this, if you get nothing else, this is the reality. The way you and I can be content, because it is really hard, how are you content when life throws your curveball and social media criticism and friends are attacking and all these things, marriage is, life is challenging, kids, how do you do that? Here's the secret. You have to come to the place when you realize, look at me, everything you have, everything I have is because God gave it to me. The faster you get here, the more content you will live. If you start there, but you don't understand, I went to school for, I get that. You don't understand, I worked hard for this, I get that. But the faster you get to where you realize, like James said, Jesus is our brother, every good and every perfect gift comes from above,

from the Father of light. Contentment, write this down, is having what you want and wanting what you have. That's contentment. Having what you want and wanting what you have. And God wants us to be content with him. That's the starting block. We're to be content with him and him alone. Our emotions cannot, listen, this is why you falter and fluctuate so often. Your emotions are tied to your spouse or your children or your friend group or your classmates. Our satisfaction cannot be dependent on our job or our status or our promotion or the online following that fluctuates in our life. Our joy has to be dependent upon something and someone that is immovable. And there's only one thing immovable in this world. It's a person, his name is who? Jesus Christ, this is what Paul knew. Paul knew this in Philippians chapter four, verse 12 and 13. Paul knew this secret. Here's what he says, watch this, look at the screen. Paul says, I know the secret of how to make do with little. The CSB says, and I know how to make do with a lot. Okay, tell us. In any and all circumstances, I have learned the secret. Paul's saying, you know what that word any and all mean in Greek?

You're gonna love this. Guess what it means? Any and all, means any and all, means every situation in life. Means your situation right now. I have learned the secret of being content whether well-fed or hungry, whether in abundance or need. I am able to do all things through Christ Jesus who what? Strengthens me. Now, contrary to popular opinion, because we see this verse tattooed on a lot of people in the sporting world, John Jones, Bones Jones, who has Philippians four, three on his chest and then goes out and punches guys in the face and wins. Okay, and he's like, Philippians four, three. Okay, that's not exactly what Paul had in mind, okay? Paul has something deeper in mind. You're gonna love this. Paul actually knows his Old Testament. In fact, I wanna submit to you, Paul is referencing the text in the book of Deuteronomy we just read through. What do you mean? Paul has in mind the Israelites journey from the bondage of Egypt into the promised land and he's making a reference to God providing food and water and direction. And here's what Paul is showing us. Before God brought them into prosperity, he taught them the value

and the lesson of the principle of contentment. Now, how do I know this? The rabbis, the sages of the Old Testament, suggest that God gave Israel in the wilderness two gifts. I don't know if you ever heard this word, the two greatest gifts. Kind of funny, but follow me. Two greatest gifts God gave Israel in the wilderness. He gave them one, a rule book to follow and he gave them calendar announcements to keep. Presley, what are you talking about? Think of it this way. God's gift to his nation was a bunch of Google Calendar invites to accept. I mean, that's what he did. Think about what God does. God says, hey, I'm gonna take the guesswork out of what you should do. I'm gonna plan your week and your year for me, follow me. Every day, you're gonna wake up and you're gonna go chase manna. But God, what if it's hot? You wanna eat? You wanna thrive? Well, what if it's raining? You wanna be sustained? Okay, every day, six days a week off on the set. Oh, by the way, and on the seventh day, when you're not working, you're gonna be worshiping. Every week, yes, because you're gonna forget about me.

And oh, by the way, let me put seven calendar invites, some of them last a week, on your calendar for the festivals where you're gonna worship. You're gonna have spiritual markers in your life. Why? Because you suffer, nation of Israel, from spiritual amnesia. Here's what God was teaching them. God was teaching, it's hard for us, but God was teaching them the principle of just enough. Write this down. The principle of just enough. See, here's what God wants. God wants them to trust him. that he will provide just enough for today. And when he gives just enough for today, he'll give just enough. Addicts know this well. That's why you always say, just have to say sober what? Today, today, just today. And then tomorrow will worry about itself. Rarely does God give excess, but he always gives enough, amen? That's why Jesus said, pray to your father, give us today our daily what? Bread for today. Now, I know what you're thinking. That has nothing to do with my life because I'm not a bread gatherer,

or a bread baker, or Noah maker. Like, I don't do that. You know, we're not doing this thing, but we do do this. Watch this. The manna of the Old Testament is a picture of Bible reading in the new for our soul. Just like the manna fed their hunger physically, your Bible reading feeds your hunger spiritually. Longhorn, look at me. If you're not reading the Bible every day, you are already at a disadvantage when you go out the house. This is why God said, you gotta read the word every single day. It's not an option, it's a calendar invite. So read the word every day. Oh, by the way, once a week, you're gonna gather with the people of God to worship me. Why? Because you forget, how many people know this? You've wandered, you've disconnected from God. Summer's busy, we don't go in person. And then you come back, you're like, wow. How did I get off track? Anybody know what I'm talking about? Oh, by the way, you're gonna meet and gather for big events throughout the year. I hate to say the timing on this was perfect, but the men's event is one of those events.

You're gonna gather, why? Because you go in a room, men, with over 4,000 men singing praises to God. God's gonna show up. Can I get an amen? And you're gonna miss it. Your friend's gonna say, hey, did you go? No, I was watching football. What? Football didn't even start yet. Well, I was watching reruns from last. Really? Let me ask you a question, look at me. What good excuse are you gonna give to God for not being in that room? If you knew that room and that moment would change your life, the way you parent your children, the way you love your wife, the kind of man you're gonna be, you would be there. And that's why I wanna challenge you to do. See, here's the thing I wanna ask you, and I wanna ask you the same question God asked Israel. Do you remember often the goodness of God in your life? When was the last time you stopped long enough and said, man, God, look at what you've done in my life. Look at how you cared for me. Look at how you, even in the worst situation, you were there with me. See, we forget. You forget, like me, what it was like

to pay that bill that came in and didn't have the money. We forget what it's like to be lost in Christ's family. We forget what it's like to wander aimlessly without hope and help. We forget what it's like when that doctor walked in that room and gave us that news. We forget what it's like to have no hope. We forget what it's like to be isolated and separated and alone and broke. Friends, listen to me. We have to remember what it was like to hit rock bottom so we remember the rock at the bottom. And that's what God does in our life. See, here's the problem. God wants them to see this. Write this down. The danger of prosperity is that a full hand forgets the one who fills it. And if it can happen to me and it can happen to pastors and leaders, man, it can happen to all of us. A comfortable house forgets the one who built it. A heart that is satisfied forgets the giver in place of the gifts. And there are only two songs you're gonna sing in just a moment, and I'm not talking about verbally, but you're gonna sing them as you leave. There's only two categories for everybody in here. The first person this morning stands up and sings this song, How Great Thou Art. The second person in here stands up and sings,

How Great I Am. One or the other. See, the first one confesses sin and repents and returns to God. The other one confesses self and runs from God. One leads you home, one leads you to be prideful. So here's what I'm calling you to do this morning. I want you to remember. For some of you, you're like, man, I don't even know the Lord well enough to know if I've ever remembered because there's nothing to remember. I've never surrendered my life to Christ. I've been trusting in my own strength. I've been putting my weight in my own power and ability. This morning, I'm gonna give you an opportunity just to cry out to the Lord and confess, God, I've done it my own way. I'm calling out and surrendering to you. But maybe you're a believer in here. Look at me, and I feel like that's the majority of people in person online. Maybe you've just gotten too. Comfortable. You've forgotten the cost of following Christ. You've forgotten who carried you this far. You've forgotten how to depend on God daily. You've forgotten how to live with open hands because you thought it's all about you. And what you're gonna do is in a moment, you're just gonna confess to God,

God, I've done it my own strength. I ask you to forgive me. And I trust in you from this point on. See, this is the worst thing we can do. The worst thing we can do is get to a place of promise that God provides with our back to the promise and the plan of God who got us there. One thing to take the promised land and forget the one who makes all the promises. So here's what I wanna do. We're gonna pray and respond in a moment. But if you're in here today and you're saying, Pastor Robbie, there's a time in my life where God really worked. I remember a time where God walked with me and cared for me and healed me and brought my family back and restored, and I want you just to, in a moment, we're just gonna praise the Lord for that. So if you're in here today, I'm just gonna ask you to stand right now. Only if you could say, man, I remember definitively a time when God worked in my life. Let's stand and we're gonna praise the Lord for that in a moment. So just stand right to your feet if you're here today. If you can remember a definitive time where you would say, man, I wanna thank the Lord for him working in my life. So just stand if that's you. And I wanna pray for you in just a moment.

I'm gonna give you an opportunity to come and make these steps an altar if you want, but let's just say in the quietness of our own heart, if you're standing, just say something in the quietness of your heart. God, thank you. God, I confess I haven't thanked you enough. I may not say it, but I act like you're not there. I act like I don't care. Confess that to him. God, I repent of going through life on autopilot. God, remind me to not forget about you. Thank you for healing me. Just tell him that in the quietness of your own heart. Thank you for saving me, some of you are gonna say. Thank you for redeeming me. Thank you for giving me a father like my dad or a husband like my spouse or a wife that I'm married to or a daughter or son. Just thank the Lord for that. Thank you for a church. We get to worship him together freely here. Father, the only thing we know how to say is thank you, Jesus. Say that with me today. Thank you, Jesus. Say it one more time. Thank you, Jesus. We pray it this morning in the only name we know how, and that's the strong and powerful name of Jesus Christ.

And everyone said, amen.